An American Writer's Thoughts on Japanese Animation

Review Slot: Conquered! – World Conquest Zvezda Plot Spoiler Review

Here I go diving into a show without a whole lot of story again. Zvezda Plot is ironically rather plotless, and has a staggering disconnect with anything resembling proper reality… and I kind of love it for that. It’s an original production that you would think could only come out of the fever dreams of Trigger (though oddly enough it’s by A1 Pictures) that has a little grade school girl trying to take over the world as the main hook and just gets goofier and goofier from there.

Because the story is so light, I’m actually going to go through this one by characters instead of chronologically. Just remember: if you’re ever asking yourself “Is that really…?” the answer is “Yes.”

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Seasonal Selection – 86 Episode 7

The pace of 86, at times, makes it difficult to talk about, or at least to start with. At the bare minimum for the week’s episode we saw some downtime and then got told what perceptive viewers already fully expected: the Spearhead is meant to kill those sent to it, a surprise to Lena but not really to us. And? And lots of development of the characters and time spent building the important emotions.

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Poor Unfortunate Souls – Magical Girl Site Spoiler Review

So, enough of those bright and cheerful magical girl shows, how about something dark, painful and miserable? Something about suffering girls trapped in a dead-end hellscape of abuse and pain that magic really only makes worse. That’s what people want, right?

No? Well too bad, it’s time for Magical Girl Site.

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Seasonal Selection – 86 Episode 6

We spend most of this episode with Spearhead, oddly enough including an extended flashback scene to when the formation was first formed, having a fun cookout together. One of the things the show does well is when it shows the 86 coping with their lives. Its very human; even in an objectively awful situation, people are going to seek happiness and ultimately cope with the horrors around them. It is, especially, thrown into stark relief when we see what the group started out as and then what they’re reduced to now, with two more deaths this episode.

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There is Now a Level Zero – Little Witch Academia Spoiler Review

Little Witch Academia is a show with an interesting history. It first started as a half-hour special, introducing us to the major characters and at least a version of the world. Later, the funding was achieved to produce another, longer special which fleshed out much more of a setting and introduced some new characters. It didn’t really contradict anything in the original, but it did evolve the material significantly.

They’re not the main thrust of this review, but I think it’s important for background to cover them quickly.

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Seasonal Selection – 86 Episode 5

So, to an extent, I was wrong. Shin’s brother got a more detailed address than I was expecting, even if, no, it wasn’t the crux of another transformation. On the other hand, we did in fact get a new movement in the major plot, and it is a hell of a big one.

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Your Mileage May Vary – Vividred Operation Spoiler Review

Vividred Operation is a weird one for me. The first time I tried to watch it, I quit part-way through Episode 2. The reason for this is probably the reason it’s got a fairly poor aggregate, and why a lot of viewers will also be dissuaded from getting through the show: The fanservice is intense, and if that doesn’t bug you on its own it’s worth noting that it’s mostly loli fanservice. Like most Magical Girls, the leads in Vividred Operation are in middle school, and unlike a lot of Magical Girls (especially ones that get fanservice-heavy treatments) at least some of them, notably the main character Akane, are drawn to look on the younger end of that and still get a lot of shots focused on their rear ends.

To be fair, the show lets you know this pretty much from frame one, when one of the first shots of the show does the James Bond style “Scene between the legs” shot with one of the girls. The show does, frankly, tone it down a little over time (I guess they assume they’d hooked the audience they wanted to hook) but it never goes away, with even that particular shot coming back a couple times.

If that’s going to filter you, you can stop now. If not, what do you actually get for going through the whole show? Honestly, a very heartfelt, legitimate, and well-constructed Magical Girl show.

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Seasonal Selection – 86 Episode 4

86 continues to impress with its humanity, but to an extent much of what was had and needed this episode was highly predictable from the last. That’s not a bad thing; there are an infinite number of ways to tell a story, and only a finite subset of them actually work. Because of this, it’s not a necessary bad thing when elements of a story are predictable, especially from what immediately precedes them.

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Seasonal Selection – 86 Episode 3

I hope you enjoy slow burn drama over any general expectation of action. Frankly, I kind of appreciate the approach… at least when there’s been a second cour announced. If we were only getting a single ordinary-sized season I would be a little bit concerned about the pacing. That said, I do think it serves a solid purpose for what I believe the show is trying to accomplish.

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Metal Hands & Human Hearts – Violet Evergarden Spoiler Review

Violet Evergarden is one of those shows that you’ve probably at least heard about if you’re the kind of person who’s reading this blog. It’s fairly recent, the anime releasing in 2018, but it caught just about everybody’s attention and generally in a positive way.

And yet I went into this show basically unspoiled. I heard a lot of people talk about how good it was, but very little about the content. I wasn’t even certain, from what little I was made aware, if Violet was actually human or if she was some kind of robot. There might be a reason for that confusion.

In my opinion, there are two things that are really worth the hype in Violet Evergarden – the titular character, and the setting. Let’s start with those.

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