My Dress-Up Darling – Episode 1
This has the makings of an exceptional rom-com, with a couple of caveats.
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World’s End Harem – Episode 1
I was honestly expecting to be laughing my way throughout this premiere, because who read the synopsis and didn’t laugh? But then I had to sit through the whole thing.
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Cue! – Episode 1
Cue is a perfectly fine anime that offers up a solid enough premiere that’s well-executed, mildly memorable, and promises more in the coming weeks as the plot finds its legs.
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SLOW LOOP – Episode 1
There’s nothing wrong with Slow Loop (except some potential yellow flags in the dynamic between these soon-to-be stepsisters, which I’ll get to in a second) but it just doesn’t earn the kind of gold star I know this genre can.
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Girls’ Frontline – Episode 1
Personifying war machines (or just putting cute girls in them) is a trope by this point, and I want to say it’s not inherently harmful in and of itself. Still, I can’t shake the feeling that the very premise of this show relies on detaching killing machines from their historical (or current!) context. Yes, these girls represent assault rifles and are shooting assault rifles, but don’t worry about it, they’re only using them to shoot evil robots. And don’t they look cool?
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In the Land of Leadale – Episode 1
A simple, laidback isekai that never touches on the ableism of the actual isekai-ing of its protagonist.
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Police in a Pod – Episode 1
Police in a Pod is copaganda dressed up to look nicely animated and “funny”, but remains copaganda nonetheless.
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Orient – Episode 1
So what’s the verdict for Orient? A strong OK. It ticks off the general checklist of what you might expect of a shounen series.
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Tokyo 24th Ward – Episode 1
This episode lost and won my trust probably about six times in the course of 48-minutes, and I’m still not sure what to think of it beyond a general “alright, I’m listening.”
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The Sound of Depression: Liminal spaces, sound design, and Super Cub
Ruminations on everyone’s favorite motorbike anime, the pandemic, and my favorite topic: liminal spaces.
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Re:Zero’s critique of Nice Guy Subaru and supposedly selfless love
Though often shown empathizing with and caring for Emilia, Subaru is also manipulative and controlling towards her. Re:Zero highlights these contradictions to create a portrayal of what is often the actual problem with Nice Guys: the assumption of commodifying good behavior for the return of love or sex, and the sense of entitlement or control over the person they like that often stems from it.
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Chatty AF 153: Cowboy Bebop Live Action Post Mortem (WITH TRANSCRIPT)
Chiaki, Mercedez, and Kate Sánchez perform a critical autopsy on Netflix’s unfortunate effort to resurrect a classic.
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Brief Connections: A Nobumoto Keiko Career Retrospective
One of the benefits to a creator having worked on so few projects is it becomes much simpler to look through their body of work to find common threads, and Nobumoto undeniably returned to the same themes over and over again. She examined the humanity of those who have hit rock bottom or the end of their lives, and the connections they can make even in moments of pain and loss.
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Wolf Queens and Girl Heroes: How Lonely Castle in the Mirror Plays with Gendered Fairytale Tropes
Tsujimura Mizuki’s best-selling novel Lonely Castle in the Mirror twists and plays with familiar fairytale tropes to empower its young female characters.
