Spring 2022 Anime, AKA the Spy x Family Thread

[Skull]

Shenmue Episodes 11, 12 & 13: Seeing as the last stretch of plot is pretty continuous with few time jumps, I decided to watch the last three episodes together as if they were an hour long special and man did I enjoy myself. The assault on the Yellow Head Building was immense fun to see, I appreciated the little touches added like expanding on why Joy and Wong were there with a deeper look into Joy's backstory with the Syndicate. My only real disappointment would be how short the fight between Ryo and Baihu ended up being. They added in extra scenes of the mysterious masked man in order to foreshadow his inevitable fight with Ryo but it was over in such a short time...ah well, here's hoping he shows up again in the future. Anyways, I felt they did the climax with Lan Di and Dou Niu justice, Ryo starting off with the Swallow Dive kick that Guizhang taught him and then finishing him off with the Bajiquan technique from Xiuying, really brought the whole thing full circle.

My closing thoughts on the entire show was that it was very well executed, the writers really knew what to keep, what to cut and what to add in to streamline the show but still capture its essence. Definitely one of the better video game adaptations and easily the best of the "Crunchyroll Originals" in my eyes. Definitely a recommend from me.

[Mattias]

My closing thoughts on the entire show was that it was very well executed, the writers really knew what to keep, what to cut and what to add in to streamline the show but still capture its essence. Definitely one of the better video game adaptations and easily the best of the "Crunchyroll Originals" in my eyes. Definitely a recommend from me.

It was definitly one of the better ones, but the best? A Place Further Than the Universe is just so good. Tonikaku Kawaii too.

Spider Isekai was a fun one too, even if it was a mess half the time.

[bassgs435]

Eh. When people think of CR originals they think of the shows heavily marketed as such, with CR originals showing at the start of every episode, rather than CR co-pros like Spider or Shield Hero
I guess ToniKawa qualifies, but beyond that it'd be Kyouko Suiri, the non-japanese stuff and the Korean webtoon adaptations. So, yeah, while there's a lot of shows that'd fall under "CR Original", only a few were actively promoted as such and thus most of the time when saying "CR Originals" people think of these few shows and not other shows that are CR coproductions but don't have the "CR original" bbrainding at the start of every episode

[WhiteFrenzy]

Ya Boy KongMing really went and said "Carole & Tuesday eat your heart out" and you love to see it. I'm heartbroken that this is such a hidden gem.

[Laserman]

Spy x Family Episode 4: The third guy giving the interview was such a scumbag, pushing his issues on the parents. If he had it his way, none of the children would make it in. So yeah, I loved how Twilight and Yor reacted to his last question and how he got punched for it.

[Mattias]

So rather than watch a bunch of newer things, tonight I caught up on Dawn of the Witch, which I had fallen very behind on. First thing I noticed is that it's Op is really weird in that it feels like it's from a 2010 anime. Something like Index, not a pure fantasy show. Second, this show feels like it's coming too late. It's been about five years since the first season, and even as solid as it was, the show wasn't really a stand out, especially at only 12 episodes. I have the feeling I should remember a bunch of these characters but aside from Zero and Tiger Dad, and vaguely Evil Dad, it feels like watching No Way Home as your first Spiderman movie. Like the show wants me to pop off, but I have no idea what it's referencing. I'm sure watching them back to back is great, but...five years.

By the way, is it just me or is Tiger Dad a bit more smoothed out in this series? I seem to remember him having a sharper face. (just checked, 1st season was White Fox and this is what seems to be Osamu Tezuka's studio, which is a thing I didn't even know existed. Apparently they did How Not to Summon a Demon Lord and Quintesstial Quints. Who knew?)

Also also, does Dawn Witch need to have a tantrum every episode where she just flashes her crotch for way too long? I get that they're trying for fanservice, but come on guys, at least try and vary it up a bit. You did a bath episode earlier. Were those the only two cheesecakes you could think of? Pull a Negima or something and have her clothes blow off when she powers up or something.

[Rafflesiac]

Isecutioner: I wonder how long it'll take Ashuna to make it out of the pit.
Kaguya: RIP the date.

[RoydGolden]

Things certainly got intense in this episode of Summertime Render. So there actually is a way to tell shadows apart from humans, as shadows react when you try to step on their shadow. That's good to know, though makes me wonder if they could train to overcome that or how inconspicuous it'd be to test...

The scene of bodies piled up at the festival reminded me of the exposition last ep of how debris that washes up at the shore is gathered for Hiruko No Mikoto. Wouldn't be surprised if Haine (the "Mother" of the shadows revealed in this ep) is actually Hiruko by another name. Big shadow dude's videogame metaphor to describe Shinpei's time-powers was so good, "Observe the moment I cut the power" is such a chilling line in context. (Even if it was a little funny mythical shadow-monster knows about videogames, either he's been keeping up to date on the modern world or that's foreshadowing he's not as ancient as you'd assume).

[Rafflesiac]

[Mattias]

I was joking when I called Bridie Wing anime Happy Gilmour, but it turns out the joke was true. At this point I'm just waiting for Eve to have to do a doubles match with Takashi Mike and get into a fistfight with him.

Fuck I had to freeze frame on the gunpla collection. She's got a Turn A (nice), GP01(I'm more a 02 man myself), NT1, Gerbera Tetra, Sumo in the front row. And the back has a Rambal Ral custom Gouf, Guncannon and what look like a Zaku, Char's Zaku and something blue and ball shaped, maybe Ball?

TL;DR the animators really liked 0083 and Turn A.

Please tell me Eve's master got eaten by an alligator just for more Happy Gilmour parallels. Or at least all his scars. Maybe it's Aoi's dad who pulled a Isshun Matoi?

Goddamn I love this show.


Edit: When is a Love Live show going to have an older seasons cast come back as the insurmountable final obstacle? I get Sunrise not wanting to put one group over another in case it pisses off the fans of the loser, but it would be so hype to see an old cast return. And then see the Superstar cast waltz over them because Kanon is best girl.

[Skull]

Digimon Ghost Game Episode 25: Wow, quite a lot to break down in this episode. Despite seeing him in the preview, I'm glad I learned my lesson with Clockmon about not getting hyped over Dracmon's return as damn, he was done in like five seconds which begs the question about what the point in bringing him back was as it's not like he was the one who revealed the Tamers' existence to Vamdemon since that was Sangloupmon. As for Vamdemon, it was a pretty interesting setup though it unfortunately lead to me thinking this was supposed to be a Ruli/Angoramon centric episode which meant that Canoweissmon's debut felt completely flat. Although some of that might be the fact that it also felt super weird that Gammamon got there from Betel, feels like it should have been Gulus being purified or something that causes the leap forward to Perfect form. Despite the boost in power, all three of the baddies end up escaping which I presume will tie into future episodes but we'll have to see if that actually goes anywhere significant.

Overall, not the greatest debut of the hero's Perfects. Hopefully Jellymon and Angoramon will fare better.

[WhiteFrenzy]

This week's Spy x Family was exactly what I expected and more, I'm loving this anime so much.

And I know I spoke about Ya Boy Kongming being the hidden gem of this season, but there's a story that it's being even more ignored, that is Dance Dance Danseur. With a hot-headed, shounen-ish protagonist, it's completely NOT what you expect an anime about ballet to be. Each week it keeps delivering and I'm so sad I have to scroll so far down to search for its discussions in reddit. Plus, this anime makes me miss SO MUCH my professional dancer days so there's also that.

[Mattias]

DDD is great. I particularly like how both male leads don't like each other, but the minute they get into that class it becomes "You suck, but all these guys are so much worse, why aren't you kicking their ass? That guy can't even point his toe right.".

[LegalLoliLover]

This Ikkitousen season is a sequel and not a reboot.

[bassgs435]

I thought it was obvious from the PVs and the fact Western Wolves didn't finish the narrative vs Himiko and the last WW episode teased Sonken's addition to the cast, so this is continuing from that

[LegalLoliLover]

A small caveat. This anime appears to be based more on the manga, ergo Ukitsu not dead... This also implies that some characters who survived in the previous anime might be dead here, such as Teni.

[Laserman]

Spy x Family Episode 5: Yor drunkenly fighting Twilight was so funny and cool at the same time.

[Mattias]

The heel break was probably the funniest part of the whole episode.

[Rafflesiac]

Isecutioner: Hilarious episode. Double hilarious how isekai kids created monsters in the first place; ties in well with adventurers just being straight-up criminals.
Kaguya: LMAO at that whole drama at the end. Bless the Winnie the Pooh reference, hit me right in the childhood.

[Skull]

Digimon Ghost Game episode 26: I was very bemused that Dracumon was removed from the intro after he was killed. As for the episode itself, I see what this episode was going for, and in many ways it was ambitious but I find the execution was ultimately lacking. For starters, showing the audience at the very beginning that Digitamamon is eating the residents adds little to the narrative. Instead they should have done one of two things, either leave it ambiguous as to who is doing the snacking or to play up the fact that something clearly went wrong during Realisation that caused the horror hunger in Digitamamon and that he can't control it with Angoramon preforming a mercy kill. I will however praise the episode in having the balls to actually kill the humans involved. A pet peeve of mine was how SymbareAngoramon went up against the enemy and Gammamon/Jellymon just stand there waiting their turn to fight. The heroes have their backs to the wall as Digitamamon just stands there menacingly, only for...Canoweissmon to turn up? Just like last episode it feels really weird that we've spent most of the episode building up Ruli and Angoramon's relationship to then have Hiro and Gammamon save the day. I've said this before, but it definitely feels like cramming all six main characters in most episodes is doing more harm than good. Anyways, Angoramon is forced to delete his old friend - one of extremely rare times in GG a hero has killed another Digimon, hopefully this will tie into his future Perfect transformation which looks feral af.

Next week is Splashmon who is giving me major Hydro-Man vibes if anyone else is old enough to remember the ol' Spider-Man animated series.