On a whim, I watched the first episode of The Fragrant Flower Blooms With Dignity last week, and it just sucked me in. I ended up binging the ten current episodes over two evenings and loved everything about it.

So then it was episode 11 of that and episode 11 of Milky Subway, both of which were excellent in their own ways.

Aside from that, I’ve been rewatching Scrapped Princess, and being reminded of what a great series it is.

That’s undoubtedly true.

But by the same measure, there’s also actually more great anime being put out now that there was in the past - again, just measured by sheer volume rather than percentage.

And while I wouldn’t disagree with that, it goes even further contrary to the rose-tinted view of the past, and thus even further from my point.

I didn’t mean to say or imply anything specific about the standards of one or another era of anime. My only point is that people need to be aware of the fact that they can’t make summary judgments regarding relative quality by pointing to all of the recognized great anime of the past, because that’s necessarily what’s remembered. The basis for any such judgment is necessarily skewed by the fact that over time, the great ones are remembered and the awful ones are forgotten.

That’s all.

Just to note…

There was just as much garbage anime in any given year in the past as there is now - it’s just that current garbage anime is current and past garbage anime has been long since forgotten.

Ditto manga, music, movies books, television, whatever. The past generally looks better because it’s only the best of it that’s remembered.

Subaru’s been the biggest revelation in the last couple of episodes - she’s so completely on their side, and that means so much.

And dad was awesome - what kind of cake to make didn’t start with flavor or anything - it started with what Rintaro wanted to communicate and how he wanted Waguri to feel. Now that’s a craftsman.

Such a great series…

I started rewatching this the other night, just on a whim, then thought about what I was getting myself into, and turned it off.

It’s a tremendous movie, but it’s so emotionally draining.

It’s something most everyone should experience at least once though, and hopefully this remaster will expose a lot more people to it.

That was awesome.

I was sure they were building up to some sort of reveal about Makina’s family, but I didn’t expect that one. And I expected the buttons were going to play a part, but again, I didn’t expect that.

Akane’s reaction was hilarious.

I think the next episode title is a misdirection. It was sort of implied in episode 1 too, but that wasn’t how Chiharu was acting.

It’d damned well better be…

Huh.

No - actually I’ve avoided it. I read the first few chapters when they were released and thought they were meh, and then when people started to rave about it, it triggered my contrariness, and I wrote it off as likely overhyped mediocrity - pabulum for the masses.

I might have to tamp down my reflexive disdain for it snd check it out…

That tracks.

As I hinted at, I was especially impressed by Kana. She’s become a terrific character, and obviously because the mangaka has lavished attention on her.and has really satisfyingly mapped out her personality - the combination of strengths and weaknesses and fears and hopes that make her the person she is. Ditto Akane - she hasn’t gotten quite the attention, so not quite the development, but is still very pleasantly well-developed. And Miyako has been a pleasant surprise - she almost seemed like a throwaway character at first, but instead she stuck around and has really blossomed. And so on - even characters like Melt and Frill get satisfying development.

And meanwhile, the whole murder mystery plot, harrowing though it seems it should be, keeps fading into the background, and only moving in fits and starts.

I definitely enjoyed it, and the quality is undeniable, but it just has an odd imbalance to it.

Binged two longer series last week.

First, I finally watched one of the series I’d been saving because I already knew it was good - Oshi no Ko. And yes, it really is as good as its reputation says. It’s an odd series though, because it’s very well done and engaging all along the way - particularly the characters - but if you pull all the way back from the details and just look at the basic premise, I don’t think it holds up all that well. It’s all just a bit too contrived. Still very good though, and really, I’d probably watch it just for Kana.

Then, looking for something completely different, I finally watched Toradora, which was… weird. It started off well enough. It moved slowly, but the characters were all interesting and I could see them growing, albeit slowly. But then starting immediately after Taiga’s fight with the President, it went badly sideways. They obviously changed it up dramatically then - it even got a new OP and ED. But more to the point, it went from slowly and steadily developing the characters to just heaving some seemingly random bit of dissociated plot in the general direction of the audience, then not even bothering to resolve anything before rushing on to the next random bit of dissociated plot. So it just became incoherent and ultimately unsatisfying - instead of a steady progression of character growth, it was just a jumble of sudden and inexplicable changes. Shame too - I was impressed up until then.

Akudama Drive

Heike Monogatari

86

Now and Then, Here and There

Ahh… that was probably my favorite episode yet. Eveeything came together so well.

And I’m still laughing at the opening gag.

VHS

That was a lot of the thing. There was such a limited number of anime released on VHS that all of us that were fans then tended to have seen the same things, so conversations naturally went to Akira and Vampire Hunter D and Bubblegum Crisis and Ninja Scroll and Hellsing and so on.

And as you note, another part of that was just seeing parts of series. Like I had a tape with the first four episodes of Trigun, so for years, that was all I knew of it. (Imagine the impact when I finally saw the rest - it’s mood whiplash enough when you watch it straight through).

Toonami opened things up and exposed a lot more people and provided a dependable way to watch a series all the way through, but it was still a relatively limited set of shows - Gundam Wing and Cowboy Bebop and Tenchi Muyo and so on.

And yeah - it’s a whole different world now. Now there are so many choices available any time that the biggest issue I face is option paralysis.

And on the topic of the VHS era of anime - a video I’ve always liked - a barrage of anime from that era, set to music: SR-71 - Let It Whip

It was a lot harder to watch anime back then

Why I’ll always have a soft spot for Gundam Wing and Tenchi Muyo and Vampire Hunter D snd Ninja Scroll and Trigun and Cowboy Bebop and…

Thanks for the heads up - I’ll check that out.

I watch older anime almost exclusively, but with manga, I’m following so many new series and adding new ones all the time that I generally don’t have the time and energy to read older ones. But I keep adding them to my TBR anyway…

I haven’t gotten to the third OP yet. I just started watching the second season the other day, and haven’t been able to give it my full attention yet, so have only seen four episodes. And yes - the OP is awful.

I delved way back into the past last week and watched Magic Knight Rayearth and thoroughly enjoyed it. Sure it’s a bit dated and silly in places, but it’s engaging and good looking and the story turns out to be quite a bit more than it initially seems.

And the OP is epic.

Pretty good all in all - seems to be mostly setting up the next episode.

Funny that when the conversation went from just a generic risk that Kanata was in danger to BL in particular, Akane panicked.

Currently binging Deca-Dence and thoroughly enjoying it. The basic set-up is fascinating, the world-building is very well done, and the two main characters have great chemistry, and both get satisfying character arcs.

At this point, I’m not surprised.

It actually struck me later that I was probably wrong - that, this series being what it is, the defied expectation was a sort of meta-joke and I was just too dumb to catch it. So… yeah.

I like your undies?

Somehow I don’t think that was the original joke…