REVIEW: Big Windup! 2 (anime TV series)

Big Windup! 2 is the second season of Big Windup!, a baseball anime. Although the first season was licensed by Funimation, it apparently didn’t sell well enough for them to license the second season. Instead, Right Stuf licensed the second season and released it only a couple months ago.

Review:

This second season picks up right where the first one left off - the game between Tosei and Nishiura ended only a few hours prior. Nishiura plays against Sakitama in the first half of the season, and against Bijou in the second half. There are also a few prominent themes and storylines: Bijou’s assistant coach, an ex-Tosei player who wants to win so badly that he encourages a Bijou player to cheat and to injure other players; Abe and his efforts to properly communicate with Mihashi; and Mihashi’s blind obedience to Abe.

I’ve now seen this season twice, and while I definitely enjoyed it, I didn’t think it was as good as the first. A large part of the problem was that I didn’t like Roka, Bijou’s assistant coach, and was mostly uninterested in the storyline dealing with him. A lot of time and effort was put into making Roka this big and menacing figure, and yet nothing ever really came of that. It was clear that he’d used a Bijou player to cheat in the past, but, in terms of what viewers got to see, it was all just talk - Bijou didn’t cheat against Nishiura, and the entire cheating scheme petered out into nothing.

The stuff about life after high school baseball was somewhat interesting, but this didn’t feel like the right time to be showing it. I mean, yes, Kawai (Tosei’s captain) had to do some hard thinking about his future, and there had been vaguely bittersweet mentions, in the first season, of how quickly the three years of high school baseball would go by, but the Nishiura team was the series’ main focus, and they were just getting started.

One thing that Roka did highlight for me was how much I generally loved the adults in this series, because he was the exception to the rule. For the most part, the adults in both the first and second season were wonderful, supportive, and excited to see high school baseball players improving and enjoying themselves. Bijou’s head coach actually enjoyed his job, unlike Roka, and while Momoe wanted Nishiura to win, she also wanted them to grow. For example, she purposely put Hanai in a position that she knew would put pressure on him because it was what he needed to improve as a player, but she also kept an eye on him in case she was pushing him too hard.

Then there were the parents, who clearly loved helping their kids out. I liked that this season finally introduced us to Mihashi and Abe’s dads. Mihashi’s dad was adorable, and Abe’s dad seemed gruff and scary at first but turned out to be extremely perceptive and kind. After meeting Mihashi only once, he immediately figured out a large part of what was going on between Abe and Mihashi and tried to make Abe aware of it, while also taking care not to trample on Abe’s feelings too much.

Now on to the games themselves, which were just as riveting as the ones in the first season.

The outcome of the Sakitama game was fairly easy to predict, since even the team’s captain didn’t expect them to be able to beat Nishiura. Still, it was fun seeing how Nishiura would deal with Sakitama’s incredible cleanup hitter. Also, I enjoyed watching Sakitama’s terrible and inexperienced battery stumble along - Abe and Mihashi’s mental commentary about them amused me.

Bijou’s team switched between multiple pitchers, and only one of them really got a chance to show off his personality a bit. It was kind of nice, seeing the catcher gradually figure out how to properly work with him, but mostly the Bijou game was about Nishiura dealing with something like the Tosei game, only with the tables turned - Bijou using data they’d collected about Nishiura against them. Despite the annoying interruptions for quick peeks at Roka, the Bijou game was nerve-wracking and exciting. It was well worth watching, if only for Mihashi’s epiphany about his reliance on Abe’s signs.

That said, I wish the season had continued for at least one more game past the Bijou match. I needed the series to end on a higher note than it did. I appreciated Mihashi and Tajima’s conversation when they biked home together, and Mihashi and Abe’s conversation at Abe’s house, I really did. I just wanted more.

Despite my dissatisfaction with the Roka storyline and the end of this season, I’d still recommend it to fans of the first season. The games were a lot of fun, Abe's efforts to have proper conversations with Mihashi and to listen to him more patiently were hilarious, and overall it was just nice to see all the Nishiura players again.

Additional Comments:

Whereas Funimation used white subtitles for both foreground and background dialogue, Right Stuf used yellow subtitles for foreground dialogue and white subtitles for background. This made busier scenes a lot easier to follow. On the minus side, I think I noticed slightly more typos in Right Stuf’s subtitling than in Funimation’s, mostly near the end of the season. I can’t comment on the accuracy of either company’s subtitles.

Extras:

A cleaning opening, clean closing, and this season's trailer - just like Funimation, bare bones stuff. Since I'm not much of a real-life baseball fan, I would have loved extras that explained, in greater depth, some of the things that happened in the two games in this season. Also, profiles of a few real-life pitchers and catchers might have been nice.

REVIEW: Big Windup! (anime TV series)

I’ve already reviewed Big Windup! twice, but I figured a third time wouldn’t hurt.

Anyway, I’ve watched this twice in the past month. The first time was intended to be a refresher before watching Big Windup! 2, while the second time was a bit of presidential inauguration self-care.

This first season of Big Windup! introduces viewers to the Nishiura High School baseball team. The team barely has enough members, and they’re all freshmen. Mihashi, in particular, stands out. He says he doesn’t want to be on the team, but it’s obvious he desperately wants to be a pitcher. He pitched all throughout middle school, and his experience on that team was so bad that it emotionally scarred him. He’s now convinced that he’s a terrible pitcher and that no one could possibly want him on a team. However, Abe, the catcher, recognizes his determination and skill and wants him to stay on the team.

The first half of the season shows the whole team training and learning to work together, after which they play against Mihoshi, the team Mihashi would have been on if he hadn’t purposely transferred to another high school. In the second half of the season, Nishiura plays against Tousei, the winner of last year’s National Koshien Tournament.

I rewatched the entire series during my end-of-2016 rewatch and was surprised at how many details I had forgotten: Tajima’s habit of loudly announcing how often he was able to masturbate, much to everyone’s discomfort and horror (oh Tajima, dude, stop); how much of those early episodes featured mental training, such as meditation; and all kinds of details about how the various games went. Although I’d seen the series before, the games against Mihoshi and Tousei still had me at the edge of my seat. I remembered how the one against Mihoshi ended up, but I couldn’t recall if Nishiura had won against Tousei or not.

During my next rewatch, I skipped all of the mental training stuff and went straight to the things in the show that I loved most: Mihashi becoming part of the team, Abe trying to bond with Mihashi, and every moment of the games against Mihoshi and Tousei.

Abe was a bit of a jerk to Mihashi at the beginning of the series - he planned to use Mihashi like a puppet in order to get the results he wanted, and Mihashi was too timid and easily manipulated to resist. Thankfully Coach Momoe put a stop to that pretty quickly, but the damage had already been done: Mihashi had no intention of ever going against Abe, even on the rare occasion when his instincts said he should. I don’t think I noticed how much of a problem this was, or how potentially damaging it could be, when I first saw the series - it was Yuri on Ice that got me to thinking about it. At any rate, this season doesn’t really delve into any of those issues, but I can now say that Big Windup! 2 does. But more on that when I review that DVD set.

While I loved watching the games (the first point scored against Tousei was just as hilarious and exciting the third time around as it was the first), my absolute favorite thing about this series remains the relationships between the various pitchers and catchers. The big one was Abe and Mihashi, of course. In this first season, Abe learned to genuinely care about Mihashi, even though he couldn’t always understand him or properly communicate with him. He respected Mihashi’s dedication to pitching and wanted Mihashi to enjoy playing baseball and being on Nishiura’s team. The next season went even deeper but, again, more on that when I get around to reviewing it.

Kanou (Mihoshi’s pitcher) and Hatake (Mihoshi’s catcher) had their own issues to work out - with more experience, they’d probably have worked really well together, but they weren’t quite there yet. Also, their differing opinions about Mihashi’s pitching put a bit of wedge between them. I loved Tousei’s battery. Kawai (the catcher) was usually pretty steady but not always sure about how to handle Junta (the pitcher - Junta is his given name, so calling him Takase would be more consistent, but “Junta” is how I think of him). Junta tended to be quiet to the point of seeming withdrawn, so Kawai had to guess how he was feeling and how to bolster his mood. It wasn’t until a bit later in the game that he started to relax and really pitch his best.

I like to think of Junta and Kawai’s relationship as a glimpse at what Mihashi and Abe’s relationship might be like in the future. The characters had some similarities, but unlike Mihashi and Abe, Junta and Kawai’s communication efforts went both ways - Kawai would notice that something was off with Junta’s mood and try to help, and vice versa. Abe would do that with Mihashi, but all Mihashi ever did was look for signs that Abe was mad at him or feel stunned excitement when Abe praised him.

Other characters I enjoyed: Tajima and Sakaeguchi. Both of them took special care to watch out for Mihashi, something that became even more obvious in the next season (again, more on that when I review that DVD set). Tajima was the confident and relaxed big brother who cheerfully translated for Mihashi when Mihashi was too stiff and awkward to communicate clearly, and Sakaeguchi watched Mihashi carefully and tried to smooth things over between him and Abe whenever necessary.

All in all, I highly recommend this series, and this season in particular. I sincerely wish that there were English-language editions of the manga that I could buy, or that the anime had a third season.

Currently rewatching: Big Windup!

Yuri on Ice left me with a craving for more sports anime, so I snagged a copy of the newly released (in the U.S., at least) Big Windup! 2. Since I figured it might pick up where Big Windup! left off, I've been rewatching that. I've somehow managed to get through 2/3 of it in only 24 hours, despite having also gone on a "big city" used book shopping trip.

Some things:

• I had forgotten that Tajima likes to loudly talk about his masturbation habits. The dude has no shame.
• I had also forgotten that Abe was kind of a jerk at the beginning of the series. I'm glad that Coach Momoe put a stop to his "use Mihashi like a puppet" mindset, although one thing that Yuri on Ice got me to thinking about was the healthiness of Abe and Mihashi's relationship. Is it okay that, even 17 episodes in, Mihashi is still convinced the only reason he's doing well as a pitcher is because he has Abe giving him signs? And Abe telling Mihashi not to worry, that he'd make sure never to get sick or injured so that he could catch for him the whole three years, had me fretting a little. I don't recall anything happening to Abe in Big Windup, but I wonder if Big Windup 2 will shake things up a bit and force Mihashi to have to work with another catcher, even if only for a little bit.
• Yuri on Ice is a series about men's figure skating, and it still manages to have a larger and more varied female cast than this series. So far we have the mothers, Coach Momoe, the cute team manager whose name I can never remember, and Ruri, Mihashi's cousin. The mothers are all varying degrees of excited and motherly. Ruri only just appeared on the scene. The team manager kind of depresses me - she apparently became the team manager because she used to really love softball, but the series never even shows her getting involved in the team's mental training exercises. By comparison, Mihashi's one friend, who became head of the team's cheering squad, was immediately asked to join the team's meditation practice. Then there's Coach Momoe. She seems awesome, but I have all kinds of questions about her that I doubt the series will ever answer. For example, if she's pouring all her part-time job money into the team, how does she pay her own bills? What inspired her decision to start Nishiura's baseball team? Will we ever see flashbacks to her days playing baseball? 
• I can't remember how any of the games turned out! The game with Tosei is freaking me out. Does Nishiura win? I can't remember! So much tension.
• I still love it when the catchers try to analyze their pitchers' emotional states and mentally debate how to handle them.
• I had thought that Yuri's anxiety and Viktor trying to deal with it was something new to me in anime, but actually it's here in Big Windup too. Mihashi is painfully anxious and prone to self-doubt. Unfortunately, like I noted earlier, his way of dealing with it maybe isn't healthy - Abe becomes his security blanket. Crossing my fingers that there's a sign, later in the series, that he can still function without Abe, the way Yuri showed that he could function without Viktor.

REVIEW: Kamisama Kiss: The Complete Series (anime TV series)

Kamisama Kiss is a supernatural romance series. Despite what this boxed set says, it's actually only the complete first season, not the complete series. It contains 13 episodes plus several extras.

Review:

Nanami is an ordinary 17-year-old girl whose life is turned upside down after her horrible parents abandon her and she’s kicked out of her home because of her dad’s gambling debts. While trying to figure out where to go from there, she helps out a random guy who was chased up a tree by a dog. That guy turns out to be Mikage, a land god who abandoned his shrine 20 years ago. He gifts Nanami with both the powers of a land god and his shrine. Later, Nanami also acquires his former familiar, Tomoe, sealing their new contract with a kiss.

At the beginning of the series, Nanami listens to a few prayers and engages in some of the supernatural matchmaking that is her duty as the new god of the Mikage Shrine. However, most of the series is devoted to her various encounters with other supernatural beings (several of whom are hot guys who develop an interest in her) and her growing love for Tomoe. Unfortunately for Nanami, Tomoe is dead set against romance between yokai and humans.

I reviewed the first volume of the manga way back in 2013. I wasn’t terribly impressed with it - the power imbalance in Tomoe and Nanami’s relationship bothered me. Their relationship was the result of a kiss that Nanami forced onto Tomoe, and their contract meant that he was essentially her slave. He had to do whatever she ordered him to do, whether he wanted to or not.

Those problematic elements still existed in the anime, although there were a few things that helped make them more bearable for me. First, it didn’t take long for evidence that Tomoe cared about Nanami to crop up - as early as the second episode, I think. Second, in episode 5 their contract was broken, and this time it was Tomoe who sealed it again. The contract still left him unable to disobey her, but at least it was clear that he was willingly Nanami’s familiar.

Unfortunately, this series quickly outstayed its welcome. I’ve seen it compared to Fruits Basket, and I’d have to say that they’re similar only in the most superficial sense. Fruits Basket was a delightful mix of character relationships, humor, supernatural elements, and romance. In Kamisama Kiss, the romance overshadowed everything.

Because I’m silly and overly optimistic, I initially thought that this series would feature Nanami trying her best to fulfill her duties as a god while her relationship with Tomoe steadily deepened. Instead, Nanami was barely shown doing her duties as a god - the shrine might as well have been a regular Japanese-style house. She spent most of her time at school and dealt with the new supernatural aspects of her life only because they were impossible to ignore. Her renewed interest in the shrine, right at the end of the series, seemed to come out of nowhere.

My impression of the romance between Nanami and Tomoe steadily went downhill. It was frustrating, because I spotted several moments when things could have been turned around and improved.

When Nanami realized that she was in love with Tomoe, her new friends at school encouraged her to go on an official date with him and capture his attention by being as cute as possible (another difference between this series and Fruits Basket: Tohru’s friends were far more than just cheerleaders for her potential romance). Nanami went way overboard, to the point that Tomoe felt he had to put a stop to things. Nanami was so heartbroken at his rejection of her that she very nearly ordered him to let her fall to her death. I wanted to shake her, but I was hopeful when she had an epiphany later on in the series. Would she realize that, whatever her feelings happened to be, she wasn’t entitled to Tomoe’s love? Would she start to come to terms with the idea that she had maybe mistaken a familiar’s devotion to his god for romantic love? It could have been really interesting, seeing Tomoe come to the realization that he loved Nanami after Nanami had already adjusted to him being nothing more to her than a loyal and devoted servant. I think I’d have liked to see him try to convince her that he loved her in a romantic sense.

Unfortunately, Nanami’s epiphany was that she needed to more actively pursue her love for Tomoe. Instead of crying over his rejection, she should work harder to convince him to love her, even after he’d repeatedly told her that he wasn’t interested in her that way and that he believed romance between humans and youkai was doomed to fail. Nanami’s renewed determination was more horrifying than endearing, especially considering that Tomoe was magically bound to her and literally could not get away from her. (No, I don’t think he’d have wanted to - from the audience’s perspective, Tomoe pretty clearly liked her. But if that hadn’t been the case, Nanami could easily have made life hell for him.)

Although the final episode ended with Tomoe asking Nanami if he could kiss her, leaving the romance in a relatively satisfying place for viewers who weren’t, like me, already turned off by it, lots of other things were left unresolved. For example, Tomoe still didn’t remember his past romance with Yukiji, there were various other huge gaps in Tomoe's past, and the series never explored the fairly strong possibility that Nanami was the reincarnation of Yukiji. Also, Mikage’s reason for abandoning his shrine was never given.

While doing a little googling after finishing this series, I discovered that it was not, in fact, the “complete series” (although it might have been when these discs were first released). A second season has since been released. That season might flesh out some of the things that this one left unresolved, but I don’t know that I care enough about the characters and story to want to shell out the cash necessary to get it. Still, the completist in me is annoyed.

Extras:

• Episode 1 commentary with Jerry Jewell (ADR Director) and Tia Ballard (English dub voice actor for Nanami). I hate to say this, but listening to this commentary was a waste of time. I did appreciate that Ballard also noticed that Nanami rarely performed any of her new duties as a god. The best quote, said by Jerry Jewell: "Why would you want to help people when you can find a boyfriend?"
• Episode 6 commentary with Jerry Jewell (ADR Director), J. Michael Tatum (English dub voice actor for Tomoe), Tia Ballard (English dub voice actor for Nanami), and Sean O'Connor (English dub voice actor for Kurama). Unlike most commentaries, this one was primarily footage of everyone in the booth, with the episode playing in the bottom right corner of the screen. I prefer normal commentaries, but this one actually worked out fairly well, mostly because no one let the conversation die out for too long. It didn't touch too much on behind-the-scenes info about voice acting for the series, but it was still more interesting than the first commentary.
• Episode 12 commentary with Jerry Jewell (ADR Director) and J. Michael Tatum (English dub voice actor for Tomoe). Again, not too much behind-the-scenes info, but still not to bad. I'd say it was the second-best commentary in the set. This one went back to the ordinary commentary format of just an audio track playing over the episode, and they did a great job of remembering to talk.
• Textless opening, and all 13 textless closings. I disliked the opening and closing songs enough to skip them almost every time, so I didn't bother watching these.
• U.S. trailer for Kamisama Kiss.
• Trailers for several other series.

REVIEW: Yuri!!! on Ice, Season 1 (anime TV series)

Yuri!!! on Ice is a sports anime focused on men's figure skating. At the moment, it's one season (12 episodes) long, although I've heard that there may be a second season.

This review contains spoilers. I tried not to talk too much about how the skating worked out, but there were things I wanted to say about the character relationships that meant I had to go into spoiler territory. Reminder: I've begun posting my TV series and movie reviews on LibraryThing, where I'm able to use spoiler tags.

Review:

I know I said I was probably going to wait a while before writing my review for this series, give myself more time to process, etc. But I think I’m just going to get it out there. I may write another one after it comes out on DVD.

Yuri on Ice is a sports anime starring Katsuki Yuri, a Japanese figure skater who is trying to recover after completely flubbing the Grand Prix Final. In order to get his love of figure skating back, he imitates the latest performance of Victor Nikiforov (spelled “Victor” in Crunchyroll and “Viktor” by a lot of fans). A recording of his performance is uploaded to the internet, sparking a lot of talk in the skating world, and Victor himself inexplicably arrives and announces he’s taking a break from skating in order to be Yuri’s coach. It’s like a dream come true for Yuri.

The bulk of the series is devoted to the newest Grand Prix Final, but throughout it all are the threads of the characters’ various relationships, including the possibility of romance between Yuri and Victor.

I wouldn’t have thought that a series in which viewers have to watch the same performances multiple times could be so exciting and engrossing, but it was. Even if I had seen a particular performance several times before in previous episodes, it never felt stale - it always said something new about the characters and their relationships.

My favorite characters were probably Yuri and Victor (of course), Russian Yuri (from here on out called by his nickname, Yurio), and Phichit, although there were several other characters I found myself rooting for at one time or another. I really felt for Yuri’s struggle to get a gold medal in what he thought would probably be his last Grand Prix Final, and his struggle with anxiety was gut-wrenching. Victor was a mystery for much of the series, but a fun one. He completely won me over during episode 10, when the motive for many of his actions was revealed. I only have a few complaints about this series, and one of them is that I could have used at least one more episode from Victor’s POV. I’d have liked to see more of Victor as he was before he decided to drop everything and rush to Yuri’s side.

Yurio was one of those characters who grew on me as the series progressed. I loved watching him become a stronger skater, gradually open up, and actually come to like Yuri (and Otabek!). I wanted Yuri to win, of course, but by the end of the series I also wanted to see Yurio soar. The way the final episodes handled his performances, and tied his final one into Yuri’s, was just wonderful.

And Phichit! His performances were fun, but I mostly loved him because he was so friendly and supportive of Yuri. And the Yuri and Victor pairing. Phichit was basically an audience stand-in at times.

The show was focused on male figure skaters, but happily it opted not to ignore women. Usually I’d expect to see one, maybe two women in a series like this. There’d be someone’s stereotypically motherly mother, and maybe one super-cute girl who was destined to be a prominent character’s girlfriend. Yuri on Ice looked, at first, like that's what it would be limited to: Yuri’s mother and Yuko, Yuri’s childhood friend. Except Yuko got married and had three kids while Yuri was away. While I would have liked to see even more female characters (I’m greedy like that), I loved the variety in the ones that were there. Probably my favorite of the bunch was Sala (Sara?), an Italian figure skater who put her foot down and forced her twin brother to get past his unhealthy dependence on her. I also liked Anya. Although she didn’t have much of a speaking role, her reaction to Georgi’s creepy final performance was perfect.

I loved this show. Episode 10 made my heart feel like it was going to burst. Episode 11 made me cry for a character I hadn’t previously liked much. And episode 12 just made me cry, period. That said, while this series was close to being my idea of perfect, it did fall short in several ways. I’ve already mentioned that I wished there had been another episode from Victor’s POV. I also occasionally had some issues with the artwork. Then there was Chris, who was kind of icky, what with his habit of literally climaxing on the ice. I have no idea why so many characters thought he was sexy.

My biggest problem with this series, however, was the ambiguity in Victor and Yuri’s relationship, which continued until the very end. The more I think about that, the more it disappoints and bothers me. Victor spent many of the early episodes blatantly flirting with Yuri, while Yuri blushed and backed away. I had heard that one of the episodes halfway through the series would have an onscreen kiss, but I have to say, other people’s definition of “onscreen” is significantly different from mine. The way that moment was staged left it unclear whether they’d actually kissed or whether they’d just hugged and their lips had only been highlighted for greater viewer squeeing.

Episode 10 looked like a turning point, explicit recognition that the series would have a central gay romance that would end happily. I expected something clear and unambiguous: maybe marriage (I was less convinced of this than other viewers), maybe a true on-screen kiss, or maybe just dialogue spelling out that, yes, the two characters are in a romantic relationship. And none of that happened. I’ve seen people say that fans who wanted unambiguous recognition of Yuri and Victor’s relationship really only wanted fanservice, and to those people I say “nope.” Like I said, I would have been fine with just unambiguous dialogue. There are so very many anime series that tease viewers with potential gay relationships and never go beyond that. Yuri on Ice looked like it took itself more seriously than that, and I was so disappointed that it never took those last few steps.

J.J. got to unambiguously propose to his unambiguous girlfriend. With Yuri and Victor, viewers got Victor repeatedly doing things and making comments that indicated he was attracted to Yuri, and indications that Yuri was probably attracted to Victor, but also repeated denials from Yuri (“he’s just my coach, this is just me thanking him!”), a light and possibly jokey tone from Victor, indications that Yuri saw their flirtations at the Grand Prix Final as just another part of his performance, and a final scene that, while lovely, was yet another ambiguous skating performance. The series came so close to officially recognizing them as a romantic couple. I don’t think an unambiguous final episode was too much to ask.

Wow, this review is long. Anyway, that’s it. I’m a little worried that my issues with the way Victor and Yuri’s relationship worked out have tainted the series for me, but I think I'm just a little sore right now and will get past it. I’d still recommend watching this. I’d just caution potential viewers not to expect too much from a romance standpoint. It’s weird - Yuri on Ice is somehow simultaneously the best show I’ve seen in months, and also possibly my biggest disappointment of the year. This show was so good! But, as lovely as all the skating and hints of romance were, explicit representation matters, and in that respect the series was a failure.

I've heard that there's going to be a second season. If that's the case, I hope that the issues I've mentioned in this review get dealt with. Unfortunately, I don't really have much trust in that at the moment. I'm sure I'll watch that season, but I'll also scale back my expectations.

Yuri on Ice - I have now seen the final episode

(This post is somewhat spoiler-y, so if you haven’t seen the final episode of Yuri on Ice and are avoiding spoilers like the plague, you should maybe move on for now.)

I got myself another guest pass for Crunchyroll, and I just finished the last episode. I think I feel good about it? I mean, besides the tears that were streaming down my face during most of the performances.

Okay, so I didn’t quite get everything I hoped for, but I did at least get the spirit of what I wanted. I think? (Oh geez, I’m so conflicted about this finale. It was beautiful. I cried a lot. But!) Confused emotions aside, this series gave me a happy ending, and for that I'm thankful. I really needed that.

JJ! I didn’t even like the guy, and yet I still cried for him. Yurio! So wonderful. His performances were gorgeous. The bit at the end with Viktor and Yuri was great, but not quite what I expected (well, not entirely true, because I tossed that idea around a while back but figured it couldn’t possibly happen). But what, exactly, does that mean as far as competitions go?

I heard something about another season possibly being in the works, but I haven’t had the courage to check whether it’s just a hopeful rumor or something more official. I really, really hope there’s going to be another season. I want more. And even though I’m still not quite sure how I feel about the ending (I wanted dialogue spelling things out, darn it*), I’m totally getting this show when it comes out on DVD.

In theory I'll be writing a review of this series at some point, but I think my emotions have to settle first. And I'll maybe have to rewatch some of it. Again. I did a series rewatch after episode 10, and I watched a couple of Yuri's performances multiple times.

* ETA, a few hours later - "Unambiguous" is the word I am looking for. Sorry, it took me a while to get my vocabulary back after that episode.

More Yuri on Ice

I love this show and hope its final episode won't break my heart. Since the overall series is warm, fuzzy, and lovely, I don't think that's going to happen, but you never know. Crossing my fingers.

I haven't read many of people's analyses of the show, because I haven't seen episode 11 (the most current episode) yet and didn't want to risk coming across too many spoilers. Although I did break down and watch a clip of the scene that made the whole fandom wail in anguish, so I'd know what to brace myself for. Anyway, I've still managed to read a few relatively non-spoilery things. Here are a couple of my favorites:

Courtney Milan writing about Viktor Nikiforov as a depiction of depression - Although episodes 10 and 11 are mentioned, there's nothing here I'd call a spoiler. Yuri's issues with anxiety are pretty clear in the show (although I'm definitely going to hunt down other people's analyses after I've finished the series, because I'm sure others have caught details I've missed and come up with interpretations I haven't thought of), but Viktor's are more subtle and I thought this was a nice take. And now it irks me even more that so many people keep telling Viktor to stop playing at being a coach, and that he couldn't possibly be a good one.

An Interview with Johnny Weir: His Thoughts on "Yuri on Ice" - This one's also pretty spoiler-free, although it does reference episode 10 in a vague way. Okay, so while I enjoy watching figure skating during the Winter Olympics, the extent of my figure skating knowledge prior to watching this show was somewhere in the realm of "zero" and "ooh, pretty." I don't actually know the names of a lot of figure skaters and only heard about Johnny Weir after Yuri on Ice fans started talking about how he was going to watch the show (more on that here: Johnny Weir Is Going to Watch Yuri on Ice, Everyone Is Excited).

After reading this interview, I'm pleased that Yuri on Ice's depiction of the figure skating world is apparently pretty accurate, pleased that someone besides me dislikes Chris (the characters keep saying how sexy he is, but he just makes my skin crawl), and I have to laugh about the banquet. Yeah, I figured that banquet had very little connection to reality. In real life someone probably would have called security. This bit in the interview was great: "The drunken dance offs happen in the hotel rooms once all the old people go to bed."

And that's it for now.

Currently watching: Yuri on Ice

I don't normally post about shows before I've finished seeing the entire thing, but in this case I have all kinds of feelings and they need an outlet. So, here we go!

Yuri on Ice is a sports anime about men's figure skating, with a side of something that might be romance (my current theory: Yuri is ace, or possibly demi - thankfully Viktor seems to be fine with that). It's wonderful. The first two or three episodes have some rough points (I hated how Yuri's gut kept getting used purely for humor), but it just keeps getting better and better from there.

I almost broke down and got a Crunchyroll subscription so I could watch episode 10 and then binge the whole series up to that point, but then I found out that neither Crunchyroll nor Funimation (the other site currently legally streaming the show) have Samsung apps anymore, so I'd still have to watch it on my computer rather than on my TV. But hey, 48-hour Crunchyroll guest memberships are a thing, and I managed to get one.

Episode 10 is the best. I think my poor heart came close to exploding. My favorite moments: the "lucky charm," Phichit's instantly joyous reaction, and the entire ending credits (but particularly Viktor's reaction at the very end).

If this series doesn't end happily, I'm going to be a wreck. At the moment though, it's a lovely bright spot at the end of this horrible year, and I'm absolutely planning on getting the DVDs once they become available. My favorite episodes so far: 6, 7, 9 (go, Sara!*), and 10 (♥).

ETA: This article (which has huge spoilers for episode 10, so watch out) does a much better job than I could of laying out some of the main things that make episode 10 so great. I hadn't thought much yet about episode 10's implications for a series rewatch, but now I'm even happier.


* - Crunchyroll's subtitles call Viktor "Victor" and Sara "Sala," but I have a feeling that "Viktor" and "Sara" would be more appropriate spellings.

REVIEW: Battle Creek, Season 1 (live action TV series)

Okay, time to try to write reviews again. I'll start off with Battle Creek. After I got home from vacation, I couldn't concentrate enough to read anything except Twitter and current news articles, so I binge-watched this instead. It's a comedy-drama mystery show. It's been canceled, so these 13 episodes are all viewers get.

Review:

The Battle Creek, Michigan police department is an under-funded joke, limping along with broken or non-existent equipment. Detective Russ Agnew hopes for help and improvements, but FBI Special Agent Milt Chamberlain isn't what he had in mind. Milt is friendly, well-liked, and backed by FBI manpower and technology. Russ doesn't trust him and resents how instantly good he seems to be at everything. He knows there must be a story behind Milt's apparent demotion to Battle Creek. He's determined to find out as much as he can, and outdo Milt while he's at it.

I almost stopped watching this show during the first episode. Russ was too abrasive, a caricature of a tough-as-nails big city cop. He repeatedly bent or broke rules, or vocally wished he could break them. Milt, meanwhile, was somewhat intriguing, but his slickness put me off. He annoyed me almost as much as he annoyed Russ.

The second episode was better, but it was sometime during the third episode that I really got hooked. Milt appeared to be genuinely kind, despite his secretiveness and many lies. Russ still had a horrifying disregard for rules (he was the kind of cop who'd plant evidence because he just knew that a particular person was responsible for a crime even if he couldn't prove it), but there was a certain gruff sweetness to him. I wanted to see if Milt could somehow manage to keep him in line, and I wanted to know, too, why Milt felt the urge to do anything at all for Russ. After all, Russ repeatedly made it clear that he didn't like or trust him.

Episodes 7 and 10 were two of my favorites. Episode 7 introduced Russ's mother, a con artist who lied and manipulated people as easily as breathing. It gave me a better understanding of why Russ was the way he was, and, even though Russ's mother frustrated me, I still kind of liked the sweet moments at the end of the episode. In episode 10, Russ was held hostage by an escaped convict. This was another surprisingly sweet episode, although, granted, like the episode title said, Stockholm syndrome probably played a part. Regardless, I really enjoyed seeing Milt worry about Russ and seeing Russ break down for a moment when Milt found him.

The show's relationships were a big part of what kept me watching. I liked Russ and Milt's growing friendship, Russ's apparent desire to connect with people and yet inability to do so, and the slow burn romance between Russ and Holly, the office manager at the police department. Unfortunately, the pacing was often kind of weird and frustrating. Russ, for example, was given multiple opportunities to deepen his relationships with others. He even had those opportunities pointed out to him by Milt and others. Instead of taking advantage of them, he purposely turned his back on them, and I'm still not entirely sure why. His repeated excuse for not asking Holly out was that they worked together, and yet, like Milt pointed out, there were many other rules and laws that he bent or broke without hesitation. Did he build walls around himself because of his mother and the way she raised him? Because he expected the worst from everybody, including himself? It's tough to say.

Russ and Milt's relationship mostly worked for me, although the last few episodes were odd. In one, Milt did the kind of rule-breaking/bending I'd normally have expected from Russ. The rapid change in his behavior was maybe explained by some of the things revealed in the last episode, but it still seemed really odd. I also felt that Russ deciding to help Milt out, almost unquestioningly and without letting any of the people he'd known for years in on it all, was a bit off. Necessary for the story, yes, but considering how walled off Russ was, not quite believable.

Russ and Holly's romance was...less appealing to me. I loved it, at first. Holly was the polar opposite of Russ, and I guessed that part of the reason why Russ was reluctant to ask her out was because he didn't want to risk any of his faults rubbing off on her. I loved the slow burn aspect of their relationship, which was why I was dismayed when they went straight from awkwardly avoiding asking each other out to Holly throwing herself at Russ and the two of them having sex in the evidence room.

I hated the end of the last episode, and I hate it even more now that I know that the series was canceled and this one season is it. Saying “I'll be all right” isn't the same thing as actually showing it, and things were pretty clearly not all right in that particular moment.

Things went a little off the rails in the final few episodes, and I wish the last episode had been tweaked a bit to end in a more satisfying way. All in all, though, this made for mostly enjoyable if problematic binge-watching.

REVIEW: Noble, My Love (live action TV series)

Warning: This review contains spoilers.

Noble, My Love is a Korean drama consisting of 20 episodes that are each about 15 minutes long. The short episode length was unexpected (I'm used to K-drama episodes being about an hour long). It was also the best thing about the series. I don't know that I'd have been able to finish it if it had been 20 hours long. I expected it to be about a cold and arrogant CEO whose heart was thawed by an unexpected encounter with a sweet and energetic veterinarian, and maybe a dog. What I got was...not quite that.

Cha Yoon Seo is a veterinarian who is struggling under a mountain of debt. Her practice is small and caters mostly to rural clients, and she has to be available 24/7 just to get by. She's proud of what she has accomplished, but things do get awkward whenever she talks to former classmates, several of whom now have high-paying jobs at more fashionable locations.

Lee Kang Hoon is a rich, successful, and handsome CEO. People love him, even though he's an arrogant jerk. He first meets Yoon Seo when the dog he's using in a commercial escapes – she finds the dog and gives him water (don't expect much from the dog - he never shows up in the series again). They meet a second time after Kang Hoon is stabbed while escaping a kidnapping attempt. Although they didn't exactly hit it off during their first meeting, Kang Hoon becomes obsessed with thoughts of the kind-hearted veterinarian who stitched him up. How can he win over a woman who seems so determined to turn down everything he offers her?

Well, that's a nicer way of putting it. In reality, Kang Hoon becomes obsessed with “helping” Yoon Seo, whether she wants it or not. He tracks her down and asks her what she wants to charge him for helping him, bitterly expecting that she'll hand him an inflated bill. Instead, and only because he refuses to go away, she charges him a reasonable amount, about what she'd ask the owners of her animal clients. This is outrageous to Kang Hoon, who thinks his life is worth much more than that, so he offers Yoon Seo a slick new animal hospital in a better but much more expensive area. She refuses for lots of reasons that make perfect sense but, again, Kang Hoon won't take “no” for an answer. So he buys her current clinic's building and schedules it for demolition, because he is a horrible human being.

This happened in episode 4. There were very few ways Kang Hoon could have been salvaged as a romantic hero, and most of them would have involved him recognizing his own horribleness. Sadly, that never happened, and yet Yoon Seo eventually fell in love with him anyway. I would have much preferred her to fall in love with her former college crush, who seemed to be nice enough, if somewhat lacking in determination (seriously, why had he never tried to figure out why Yoon Seo pushed him away?).

Every time things went wrong for Yoon Seo, I loathed Kang Hoon more. No matter how nice her new clinic was, since she hadn't worked to get there she didn't have an established client base in that area. It was all Kang Hoon's fault, and yet instead of apologizing he used her lack of clients against her in order to bind her more firmly to him. It was horrifying.

At the same time, some of the things that happened were things that Yoon Seo allowed to have happen. That stupid contract, for one thing. In episode 7, Yoon Seo stupidly signed a contract that forced her to have daily contact with Kang Hoon, destroyed what little private life she still had left, and basically put her at his beck and call. Later she made things worse by agreeing to move in with him (in part because he made it impossible for her not to agree, because he was horrible).

Speaking of that contract, what the heck was a K-drama doing referencing that horrible fanfic, 50 Shades of Grey? For no reason whatsoever, the contract referred to Kang Hoon as the dominant and Yoon Seo as the submissive, and neither one of them laughed at the stupidity of it. I'm still wondering what the point was supposed to be, other than to connect Kang Hoon with another fictional overbearing jerk. It's not even that the series was steamier than most K-dramas – the most Kang Hoon and Yoon Seo did was awkwardly kiss.

There were maybe one or two good episodes in this whole series. Episode 18, for example, actually felt like a decent, if compressed, K-drama episode, with family drama and Kang Hoon displaying his vulnerable side. Unfortunately it was too little, too late. Plus, I could have smacked Kang Hoon when, in episode 20, he told Yoon Seo “Please have it my way this one time.” Excuse me? When did Kang Hoon ever not get his way?

The ending was a mess that didn't even fit the series' internal logic. Why did Yoon Seo balk at a prenup when she'd been perfectly willing to sign a stupid contract that put her at Kang Hoon's beck and call? Kang Hoon's sibling issues evaporated like they never existed, there was never an explanation for the kidnapping that almost resulted in Kang Hoon getting killed, and Kang Hoon's mom accepted Yoon Seo way too quickly and easily.

All in all, even considering the short episodes, I can't recommend this series.

REVIEW: Ajin, Season 1 (anime TV series, CGI animation)

Ajin is a mix of action, mystery, and fantasy (sci-fi?). This first season is 13 episodes long.

Review:

It's been almost a year since I last watched and reviewed anime. I figured it was finally time to watch something new, so I checked my Netflix queue and picked Ajin.

Ajin stars Kei, a high school student who is completely and utterly focused on the bright future his mother has outlined for him, to the point that he even ditched his best friend Kai when his mother said Kai would be a bad influence on him. Kei never toes the line and never does anything wrong...but then he's hit by a truck and his whole world changes. Instead of dying or waking up in a hospital, Kei gets back up again like nothing happened, proving to everyone that he's an Ajin, an immortal being. Ajin are considered nonhuman, and it is Kei's fate, from that point forward, to be hunted down like an animal, captured by the government, and put through horrific tests. However, with a bit of help Kei manages to evade capture and soon learns that there are more Ajin out there than has been made public.

I had an instant, knee-jerk “ick” reaction to this show when I first started watching it, not because of the content but rather because of the animation. Like Arpeggio of Blue Steel, this was another series that relied solely on CGI animation, and it...wasn't good. Facial expressions were a bit too stiff, the way shadows moved over people's faces and bodies sometimes looked odd, characters' hair looked like something you could cut yourself on, walking motions were occasionally jerky, and some characters, like one of the cops, were almost painful to look at. His wrinkles looked drawn on, rather than like a feature of his face. I was afraid that Sato would be just as bad, but thankfully they spent a bit more time on his design.

Either the visuals improved or I just got used to it. I did like how the CGI looked when it came to the shadowy beings that Ajin could call up to fight each other and others with. The shadows were deep enough to hide any issues, and the CGI “floating ashes” effect was pretty nice.

As far as the story went, I have to stress that this is only the first season, and no effort was made to truly wrap things up. It didn't end at too bad of a spot, thank goodness, but I'm still impatient for a second season to be created, or for Netflix to stream the related movies.

Anyway, this first season was interesting. I was a bit disappointed that Kai was abandoned so quickly, but perhaps he'll show up again at a later date. I really hope that his sole purpose wasn't just to give Kei the next best thing to a conscience. I should explain: in the series, it's gradually made clear that Kei has antisocial personality disorder. He lacks empathy for others and refrains from killing only because he believes it would upset Kai if he ever found out. His goal is to live a quiet life, and if that means he has to stand by and watch as Sato kills many others, so be it, as long as Sato's actions don't directly affect him.

While it was surprising that the super-powered main character wasn't the slightest bit interested in saving people, it did mean that Kei wasn't exactly likeable. It also meant that he spent a good chunk of this first season doing nothing much. Instead, it was Sato doing things, Sato taking part in seemingly impossible-to-win battles and coming out on top. And, as a result, there wasn't really a side to cheer for. Sato and his accomplice went on killing sprees without caring who died. Tosaki, the agent trying to take him down, was part of a group that coldly captured and tortured Ajin for profit. Kei would have calmly let the whole world die around him, as long as he was allowed to live in his peaceful little bubble. The characters I felt for were the ones caught in between the various groups, like Shimomura (I really want to know more about her history) and Ko.

I'm intrigued enough to hope for a second season, and to want to read the manga. The animation wasn't to my taste, but I did enjoy the battle scenes (a warning: Ajin battles often involve suicide). Kei wasn't the most likeable of characters, but by the end of the season he finally got the motivation he needed to go against Sato, and I'd love to see how that works out. There's still plenty of room for this series to fall flat on its face, but so far I'm hopeful.

REVIEW: Atelier (live action TV series)

Mayuko is a “fabric geek” who gets a job at Emotion, a high-class custom-made lingerie shop. Her first days there are nerve-wracking, as her new boss, Mayumi Nanjo, tells her that she doesn't understand beauty and dresses horribly. She eventually adjusts and learns to love the place and her coworkers. However, as much as Mayuko and the others admire Nanjo and her work, her way isn't always their way.

I really enjoyed this series, much more than I expected. I had thought it would be a sort of Japanese The Devil Wears Prada, but it was much warmer and kinder than that. Even though Nanjo was pretty blunt with Mayuko at times, she was also gentler than I would have expected – some of the things Mayuko did when she first started working there (like talking back at the boss) would probably have gotten her fired from any other place.

Although this had lots of ladies walking around in their underwear, it was absolutely written with a female audience in mind. The cast was almost entirely female, and the few characters who were shuffled to the background or replaced were usually male. Nanjo focused on how lingerie made her customers feel, rather than on the effect that the women wearing the lingerie might have on men. Also, and I have to laugh here, the series stubbornly refused to let romance take over, instead keeping its focus on the various women trying to figure out the direction their professional lives should take.

On that note, I should mention that one of the things about the series that made me uncomfortable was the way everything seemed to be shuffled aside in favor of the characters' work. The series included lots of different kinds of professionals: the lingerie designer who was also a single (I think?) mom, the designer who decided that seeing more people wear her clothes was more appealing to her than creating expensive works of art that only a few people could afford, Nanjo and her focus on both beauty and the customer over everything else, and more. None of those people had much in the way of personal lives, however.

In fact, Nanjo's storyline showed her rejecting, and forgiving herself for rejecting, personal attachments that weren't directly a part of her career. I'm not really interested in ever getting married or having kids myself, and even I found aspects of her storyline to be heartbreaking for at least one of the people around her. Meanwhile, Mayuko was so focused on her career that she barely seemed to notice that two separate guys were interested in her. It would have been nice to see even just one character have some significant down-time from work – maybe a bit more about the one older Emotion employee (can't remember her name right now, but she taught Mayuko a little about how to measure customers without making them uncomfortable) and her relationship with her husband?

Anyway, overall I really liked this. Mayuko's relationship with Nanjo was enjoyable, and Nanjo herself was wonderful – I'd love to see Mao Daichi (Nanjo) in more things. I admit, I was a little disappointed that there wasn't any romance, but I still got a kick out of how slow Mayuko was to realize that anyone was even interested in her, and that she then used what could have been a romantic subplot to find new direction in her career. The series' cheese factor was occasionally a bit high, but the drama and general kindness helped make up for that. I liked that, in the end, the closest thing the series had to a villain was the one corporate dude, and even he was presented as being just another part of the way the clothing world operates – not evil so much as very different from people like Nanjo.

Ah, one last thing: I wish the series had been just one episode longer - I would have liked some reassurance that everyone was still doing okay a few months/years down the line. Especially Mayuko, who made what I felt was an extremely risky decision considering that she hadn't really saved for it, gotten financial backing, or done much planning.