Thank You Kyoto Animation

After the horrific tragedy that occurred last July, I knew I needed to write as near a perfect personal tribute to the wonderful people at Kyoto Animation as I am able to before I would even contemplate continuing to write about anime. It seemed like the right and proper thing to do, as well as being the bare minimum I needed to do as so much of the joy that anime has given me in the 15+ years I’ve watched it has been connected to Kyoto Animation.

While the intent as obvious to me, the form of such a tribute alluded me. I almost decided on doing a countdown of my favorite KyoAni works, in part because I’d been thinking of doing one for years now, but realized after further reflection that some clickbaity sounding article was not even close to what Kyoto Animation deserved from me. A better option would have been a long post where I talked about an assorted list of favorites and I almost started blocking such a post out. I realized I still wasn’t happy with this idea since I could really make such a post about any animation studio. As I worked slowly towards the answer, I also realized that I sort of didn’t want to find the answer. Doing so would acknowledge what happened, make it a fact, and remove any space in my brain to retreat to and imagine Schrodinger’s box is still unopened. Incidentally, that’s why I’ve never watched Satoshi Kon’s Perfect Blue; once I do then there are no more movies of his I can look forward to seeing and I have to acknowledge he’s been gone for 9 years now.

To combat my disinclination to post this, I signed up for this year’s Anime Secret Santa that the website all geek’s considered is continuing from the tradition started by Reverse Thieves. To post my review for that, I need to write this first 🙂 .

And I eventually realized why I’m so uniquely thankful for Kyoto Animation. Episode 0 of The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya – The Adventures of Mikuru Asahina.

On Idols and Context

People are people.

The Bizarre Ending of Re:Creators

I would like it explained to me what, exactly, happened when the surviving characters of Altair’s failed rebellion walked through that portal in the final episode of Re:Creators. Because I think I watched them kill themselves.

This depressing thought snuck up on me the other night, as I walked to my refrigerator for a drink, after being generally happy with the final episode of Re:Creators and mulling over how cutting Altair out of the show completely would have made for a much better show. I tried to deny this thought and couldn’t. (Either thought, really, Re:Creators would have worked better as a slice-of-life series without the presence of Altair but that’s not the purpose of this post.) I slept on it and still can’t find the fault in this depressing idea. I had not intended to revisit Re:Creators after writing such a long post last week about the problems this show had; however, I was not expecting to watch a number of cast members getting spaghettified in some sort of cosmic blue portal of death.

The Disappointment of Re:Creators

I will not rage.

After 20 episodes I realized that Re:Creators was somehow going to find a way to under-perform even the meager expectations I had about it’s telegraphed ending. I can’t pretend I was shocked, surprised, or even offended about how poorly executed the creators of Re:Creators resolved the central conflict of the series in episode 21. In fact, the only feeling of surprise I had while slogging through episode 21 was finding out how little I actually cared about how the show was going to resolve itself; I thought I was more invested in this show than I turned out to be.

Then again, maybe if all the likable characters weren’t killed or completely sidelined from the show, I might have cared enough about Re:Creators to feel the need to rage about this ending. Instead, I feel disappointed that not even a decent ending could have been salvaged from this show.

So, I will not rage. I will, however, lay out some of the reasons why Re:Creators was a disappointment.

ChaoS;Child 10 – Small Failings Clarify a Larger Problem

ChaoS;Child episode 10 sees this series continue to chug on at the level of quality it apparently is satisfied with – namely, better then Occultic;Nine, but, still far short of being good. So, in that respect, there’s nothing noteworthy about this episode. However, the flashback scenes in this episode crystallized to me one of the problems this anime faces.

That problem is the production staff doesn’t care enough to try to make ChaoS;Child a good anime.

The Bitter Taste Left by the Second Season of Food Wars!

There were only a few anime series that I was able to watch this Summer season. That one of them was Food Wars! The Second Plate (Shokugeki no Souma 2nd Season) should be of little surprise, since, the first season ranked at #7 in my top 15 anime for 2015 post. That the second season is the favorite to win the title as most disappointing anime of 2016 shouldn’t be a surprise, at least, to anyone who watched both series.

In hindsight, I should have seen this coming.