An American Writer's Thoughts on Japanese Animation

Month: May 2022

Colorful Life – Iroduku: the World in Colors Spoiler Review

Several times in the past I’ve talked about shows I’ve termed “Slice of Nothing”. Typically, these are Slice of Life shows (and thus they don’t present an overarching plot) without another genre to contribute direction. It says nothing about their quality, they can still be good or bad in their own rights, but they tend to be meandering and low-key, and not stories in which much if anything is accomplished or achieved.

But it is possible to have a show that’s basically pure Slice of Life that doesn’t become Slice of Nothing. For example, we have Iroduku: the World in Colors (aka Irozuku, depending on who you ask).

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The Cardcaptor Returns – Cardcaptor Sakura Movie Spoiler Review Double Feature

If you’ve been following the blog, particularly the Magical Girl reviews, the idea may have gotten across that I have a great deal of respect for Cardcaptor Sakura. The original show may not have been quite as spectacular as some others, but it came together amazingly well given everything. As such, it was a topic that I was more than willing to revisit. While there is a sequel season, Clear Card, for now I’ll be addressing Sakura’s two feature-length outings, called simply Cardcaptor Sakura: the Movie and Cardcaptur Sakura Movie 2: The Sealed Card.

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Sacrifice, Despair, Slice of Life, and Two Stories for the Price of One – Yuki Yuna is a Hero Season 2 (Washio Sumi & Hero Chapters) Spoiler Review

It’s been a while since the first time I talked about Yuki Yuna is a Hero. The basic takeaway was that it was very much a Magical Girl show that existed in the shadow of Madoka Magica in terms of its world and story structure, but that carved an admirable niche for itself, in large part with good use of lighter elements and slice of life to counterpoint the magical darkness of existence in the setting.

Apparently, Yuki Yuna did pretty well for herself, because that show ended up being the start of a fairly significant franchise, which returned to anime in the form of a second season split between two half-season long stories: the Washio Sumi Chapter, which tells the tragic tale of the first run that Mimori Togo (then known as Sumi Washio) and Sonoko Nogi had as heroes; and the Hero Chapter, which functions as a direct sequel to Season 1 of Yuki Yuna.

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Friendship Through Superior Firepower – Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha Spoiler Review

When it comes to Magical Girl franchises, Nanoha is one of the big ones. Possibly not on the uppermost tier (it’s hard to say anything stands on the same level as Sailor Moon), but it’s both quite large, in terms of the amount of content that’s part of the franchise, and highly recognizable. Despite this, I didn’t address Nanoha in my first Magical Girl May block of reviews, and while I’m no longer focusing the month of May on historical retrospectives of the genre, I did feel somewhat remiss in that I didn’t say anything about Nanoha.

Well, if the best time to tackle this thing was the first time around, the second-best time is right now, so that’s what we’ll be doing, looking at the very first season of Lyrical Nanoha, the one that started it all for the sprawling Nanoha franchise.

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Cardcaptor Sakura in Fate/Stay Night’s Skin – Fate/kaleid liner Prisma Illya Season 1 Spoiler Review

So, this is a show about a grade school girl who discovers a magic staff and then learns that she has to harness the power of magic in order to gather a set of mystical cards that are currently incarnated as magical beings and causing trouble around her city. She has a crush on a high school boy known to her, her closest magical contact is kind of a self-important jerk sometimes, and she ends up competing for the cards with a rival her age who is initially overly serious but with whom she eventually becomes good friends.

Oddly enough, this girl is not Sakura Kinomoto. It’s Illyasviel von Einzbern, at least in the Magical Girl spinoff of the Fate franchise, Fate/kaleid liner Prisma Illya.

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