Interest Stacks

A pretty standard sports narrative that starts out a bit slow, but the death of one of the main characters midway through the show really help give it its own identity. Yoshiharu Kubo never stops being the centralizing figure of the series even after he dies, and the narrative is strongly anchored in exploring how both the protagonist team and their opponents grapple with their lingering grief, frustration, and admiration. It does veer into melodrama quite often, but that's the part I love most about it. It should also be mentioned that Shoot spends about half of its runtime being what feels like a very conventional romantic drama/comedy held up by a ridiculous amount of mutual egregious miscommunication. I suppose though that it helps break up any potential sports fatigue, and it really does end up tying into the final match of the show very nicely.

S3 had higher highs but still a very solid season. The series' main weakness continues to be how the battles can feel a bit directionless and how it can be kind of weird about the way it writes its women. Like it feels like it's trying to be progressive, but in a very 1980s way, and for how much it stumbles, I think the series would be better served if it didn't try the consolation of presenting a narrative that's less prejudiced than reality. The season starts out very good with giving the S1 antagonist the reins to spearhead an operation. I was very excited to see how the redemption arc would play out in the long term, but they end up killing him off soon afterwards, and god, for how often this happens in general it might be my biggest storytelling pet peeve. The back of the season finally wrapping up the three-way fight for the throne the series has built up for over 200 episodes is well done though, and it plays perfectly to the series' strengths of its political intrigue writing, if you like the political intrigue to be a bit on the soap opera side.

I also very much enjoy the second OP as a song.

I remember loving the manga from when I read it 15 years ago, and from what I can tell, the anime shares very little of the same elements. It feels like the writers were given the rundown of what happened in the manga without any of the context, so it all gets reframed way worse. Things that should be basic elements of the premise like the protagonist stealing specifically Hikari artwork because of their inherent destructive magic aren't mentioned until the last few episodes. That in turn makes the earlier episodic heists confused, because they weren't stealing Hikari art but art made by randos that I guess also had magical power for some reason. The way they handle Hiwatari is especially bad, since he should be the primary early antagonist, but he gets one episode of focus before he goes "I'm leaving the school for a while" for no reason and we don't see him again until the second half of the show. But don't worry, we'll still pretend his character development with seeing Daisuke as a friend smoothly chugged along despite the two of them having absolutely no chance of even talking off-screen. The anime spends most of its focus instead on very by-the-numbers romantic hijinks and even less interesting original characters.

When they actually show the manga material how it is, it's decent nostalgia indulgence, but that part is about 20% of the show, and a lot of it is in the last few episodes of the show. I thought the little unique animations they gave every episode title card was cute at least.

The main appeal of the series is its relaxed pacing, letting scenes breathe and stand on their own. I especially liked the sibling dynamic between Natsumi and Komari, which was portrayed refreshingly realistic for anime, where they might tease or fight with each other but in the end show they care about each other in all the small, understated ways. It's a shame that the later seasons move away from this to more conventional jokes and setups, but I also understand there's not much one could do to shake up the formula when you can't work with any big dramatic twists. When I originally watched K-On! in 2018, I thought it decent but had absolutely no motivation to continue past the first season, and ultimately I think the same ended up true here. Non Non Biyori is a good series and the ending graduation and wrap up would not have been nearly effective without the three season journey to get there, but I think I got everything I needed to appreciate it out of the first 12 episodes.

uhhhhhhhhh I watched this in one sitting lol. The villainess isekai (male) premise is fun, and it's such a relief to see something actually explore the boundaries of the system after Bakarina relentlessly blueballed me. Very digestible narrative, reminds me of the kind of slow burn slash fics I'd read, even if the stopping point is extremely arbitrary.

Reminded me a lot in tone and structure of the Singaporean Chinese dramas I used to love as a kid. The episodic structure is heavily themed around dealing with loss and regret, but it largely avoids the predictable outcomes and the reveals in the climaxes of the arcs can be surprisingly moving. The emotional beats are done well, and if that was all to the show, I'd call it a solid drama with decent character growth for its protagonist. The other half of the show though is a murder mystery. While the supernatural abilities are ingrained into the setting, the mystery itself is (mostly) fair. There's enough clues scattered about the episodic stories to give the viewer the tools to try to solve the case if they so desire, and it's a lot of fun seeing the ending reveal and going, "Ohhhh, that's why they did that!" Probably don't watch this until season 2 is out because with the cliffhanger that's all you get though lol.

Mob's character development in this season is competently done and all, but nothing quite feels as real as Reigen opening Facebook on his birthday to zero well wishes and silently taking life advice from his mom over email. That's the good shit.

The whole thing is a generic sports movie narrative and does nothing else to set itself apart. The character writing is asinine, and the baseball strategy is frequently nonsensical. The fallout with the character death could have been alright, but the show barely did anything to set it up, so it ends up just ringing rather hollow.

It's an interesting enough premise, and while they're pretty by-the-numbers, I enjoyed the introspective scenes and cute friendships, and Shunsuke Takeuchi is always a delight to listen to. But man, the ridiculous caricature of the bullying is such a drag. The setting is a world where practically anyone will beat a guy unconscious and strip them naked for the crime of being fat and existing while a crowd of strangers applauds and cheers them on, like the evil version of those fake Tumblr stories. The same thing happens again and again with zero subtlety, so it becomes rote and boring to sit through. It's kind of funny how the bullies who rope the protagonist into their circle stop being bullies after he said something tangentially nice to one of them once. They're clearly still extremely shallow people who never even considered apologizing for anything they did, but none of their former victims seem to really care either? It's so bizarre.

It's hard to judge the series considering its broadcast circumstances. Still, I have some trouble believing they could have resolved everything cleanly with just another 12 episodes. We got like nine kids on the stack waiting to sort out their issues, and the development we do get to see goes by lightning fast, undermining the emotional beats they established in the setup. Take Maki, for example. He starts off as your classic closed off, depressed teen who deliberately says hurtful things to get other people to dislike him as much as he thinks he deserves to be disliked. But at the same time, he's incredibly good at making friends and framed as the perfect, understanding guy who never judges people for who they are. He befriends the team relatively quick, taking up a position as the main decision maker despite being a complete newbie to soft tennis, and we never see the spiteful part of him after the first few episodes. Of course, this is easily something that could have blown up in Maki's face later on in a hypothetical second cour, but I find that a little doubtful given all the other plotlines we were juggling. The high point of the series for me was Kazuya Nakai's performance as Maki's piece of shit dad. It's the best role I've heard out of him in years, and his scenes are where the series is most effective at creating tension. But man, when all the kids' issues stem from bad parenting, it really makes everything blend together.