Shinigami Bocchan to Kuro Maid Season 2 • The Duke of Death and His Maid Season 2 - Episode 3 discussion
I guess they're really sticking with Resonance for "kokoro no oto". I mean, "sound of the heart" or i dunno, something shorter to mash up the words like "heartsound" or something would help sub readers connect themes together like Yohane trying to find something fun only she can do and basically everything Mari said and this being Love Live and all, but eh,.. I guess resonance kinda half sorta works, oh well.
Yeah, I don't think trying to hide that you're a fairy really works for Ruby (but I guess that's half the point, unless maybe there's like Hakumei and Mikochi-sized wingless pepole too?!). Anyways, a nice character-growth episode today and prob my fav of this series so far. The afternoon and sparkly sea shots were pretty and so was the whole scene with the bridge shadows (which also helps visualize today's themes as an extra bonus).
Hah, I would recognize Mamoru Miyano's voice anywhere (well, almost. he's a little harder to pick out in his more subdued roles). Makoto Furukawa's voice I have more trouble with (like he was in Gundam NT, what?) but I guess he's pretty recognizable here.
It's fun seeing all the zombies in different getups, I kinda wonder what's with the guy in the sailor fuku. Kencho's speech kinda reminds me of some themes in recently airing anime... I guess the sun dimming as it passes by buildings and then coming out, the literal leaps of faith, the stripping off of formal clothes, and the helping hand were kinda,.. on the noise, but it was a fun and pretty sequence.
Susumu Hirasawa also did the OP and ED to Kon's Paprika and I haven't managed to find clips of him performing any of Paranoia Agent live, his live shows look like a trip with him performing with a laser controller
Not really sure what qualifies as underrated/overrated,.. BUT in terms of things I can find on YouTube and general sense of amount of discussion I've seen,.. I think the OPs get more attention than the EDs of these series when I've tended to like the EDs better
Seisenshi Dunbine's ED because power ballads are fun
Gundam IBO S1's ED feels James Bondy with the swung feel and the strings (incidentally Aria the Origination's OP Spirale, also great, kinda feels James Bondy to me but more for the chromaticism,.. ANYWAYS)
and yeah, this was a stacked season (with competition like Bocchi the Rock) but I think my favorite ED of that season was Do It Yourself's ED because of its ultimate comf (kinda gives me the same feel as Nichijou's first ED)
I really liked the colors and use of light in the forest scene,.. all those drab, grayish-greenish-blueish colors, the soft yellow glow of the lantern (and particular liked the ones where you see that glow spread out horizontally), the shots of the characters looking down backlit by the moon (especially liked the one with tsugaru and rindo), and that ending shot with tsugaru and rindo backlit with that lens flare (and then the monogatari-speed text flashes but also way less text than monogatari).
Could listen to Shuuchi Ikeda narration all day. Speaking of VAs, Mikako Komatsu is killing it and also noticed that she was also the MC in one of director Tatsuo Satou's previous series in Mouretsu Pirates (slightly more composed and less screamy role though, also I still need to watch the movie). Comedic timing is still on point and I loved the stingers revealing Azudora's health. The expression on the face of those ouroboros-y looking deep green rings are fun.
The octopus kinda reminds me of the SPECTRE logo from James Bond. The catch with the time magic sounds pretty interesting and kinda makes me think of other anime dalliances with time. The whole episode was fun, maid Walter was fun and I liked the chibi squiggly animation of the flashback.
Tonosama kinda vaguely reminds me of Chrono Trigger, I guess he's what would happen if you mashed up Frog and Robo. Wouldn't a bench be hard to swing by yourself? Especially for kids, kinda feels like something you'd have on a porch to lazily rock on but eh, at least it's infinitely froggier now.
I liked the use of the newscast to clue us in on the timeframe. I kinda like the blurring of anime reality and fiction by not explicitly telling us that what was on screen was a movie (and I suppose John Adams is supposed to be a generic name in English but it made me think of the composers,.. then the president). The aspect ratio and the color palette of the beginning of the ED making it look like an older anime is kinda neat.
On a metanote, it seems like Shinobu isn't posting all of the episode discussion threads on this instance? Things like Shinigami Bocchan and Genjitsu no Yohane didn't make it over to this instance.
It looks like Tatsuo Satou (the director of Kidou Senkan Nadesico, Uchuu no Stellvia, and Mouretsu Pirates) is directing this so yeah, I'm in. Also, Shuuichi Ikeda (aka CHAR) is narrating,... and then Akira Ishida (Athrun Zala among many other things) is one of the characters?! alright alright.
Anyways, not knowing anything about this coming in, this first ep was a lot of fun and Tatsuo Satou is a director who I like for the worldbuilding in their series and the balance of seriousness with good comedic timing so looking forward to the rest.
fantastic first episode. Coming in blind, I kinda wonder if there's gonna be more digs at work culture with the zombie parallels. As pointed out by KVin of SakugaBlog fame on twitter, the ZLM company is a pretty thinly-veiled reference to the studio OLM that BUG FILMS split off from (down to logo and office building). Seems like a lot of folks like the resignation scene but the other string of jokes I liked from this ep was that string of opposites in the MC's narration where he mentions the employees being moved to tears, or health being a priority. It kinda feels like a lot of ground and variety was covered with different sorts of shots with everything moving at a brisk pace which was kinda overwhelming (probably the point) but also really impressive and kinda exhilarating, the energy levels kinda didn't dip the whole 24 minutes.
Fun super-sentai-ish sorta fight and kinda felt Symphogear-y for a moment (except the characters weren't "actually" singing the songs so more Revue Starlight-y?). Kinda weird Crunchyroll sub translation of "kokoro no oto" to Resonance (especially with other direct mentions of "heart" in the dialogue of this ep) but eh.
Fun episode and the ED was nice. I don't remember Hiroshi Kamiya's character being that .. straightforward with his desires (he kinda felt like other character's he's voiced in this ep hah) but it's been awhile since S1. The animation is a bit more wooden than I remembered but there was some decent character animation like Zain's face getting stretched. And yeah, nice sweet moment at the end.
def one of my favs of the season.
mentioned last week how i liked tsubaki's confession scene and i like its continuation here. kvin from sakugablog has a twitter thread about this anime and mentions the weird way this show uses the traditional shoujo anime "sparkles" that float around the screen and act as transitions, using the beer from the beginning of the series of as an example. i liked how the tears were this episode's usage of the shoujo sparkles and in particular, there was that one tear that floated in front of the flashbacks.
how runa was animated throughout the dinner was really fun. my favorite bit was when akane was holding runa up and had her hand over her mouth to keep her quiet and runa is just hanging there.
doesn't feel like a show i should hold my breath for a s2 and things feel nicely tied up and full circle here, but it'd be a pleasant surprise. in any case, it'd be fun to see inori minase in more roles that use this voice (although i do like her usual asmr-y or lively genki voice roles).
octopus symbol and spectre...errr.. spectral bride in the same episode, eh? Anyways, the red string of fate gag was cute (and so was the bubble pipe waving around in the air). Wouldn't an anglerfish not be able to survive at the depths as the rest of these other fish? Eh, I guess it's a magical anglerfish (also it looks like not all anglerfish live in the deep sea? but then the subs mentioned deep sea,,.. eh). Nice to see some progress made in terms of the curse, at least there's a more solid lead to follow.