Fall 2019 – Week 2 in Review

Alright folks, we’ve got a ton of anime to discuss and not nearly enough time, so let’s get to work. In addition to catching up on all the second episodes I missed due to preview week’s never-ending nature, I also spent much of the last week tying up various loose ends from the summer season. I spammed through what remained of Vinland Saga, have nearly caught up on JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, concluded Carole & Tuesday, and swore a blood oath to catch up on O Maidens at the first possible opportunity. With only a single season left in the anime year, it’s time to start thinking about 2019’s best shows, and that discussion kinda demands actually having watched the year’s best shows in the first place.

Meanwhile, the fall season itself is proving to be full of treasures, packed with strong continuing productions, excellent sequels, and some genuinely stunning new productions. Both Blade of the Immortal and Stars Align have immediately established themselves as top shelf 2019 productions, while steady favorites like Legends of the Galactic Heroes and Chihayafuru remain as compelling as ever. It’s a genuinely kickass anime season, and I’ve got a heck of a lot to talk about. Let’s break down the concluding stars of summer, and the new favorites of the fall season!

First off, Carole & Tuesday ended on the most sentimental, idealistic note it could have, offering an unexpected degree of sympathy for Tuesday’s mother Valarie, and concluding on a simple, triumphant plea for unity from the show’s many musical stars. One musical performance isn’t actually going to change the world, but in C&T’s case, this ending felt exactly right for this show.

In an age of well-founded hopelessness across the globe, Shinichiro Watanabe clearly wanted to make something joyful and optimistic, something that comforts or inspires hope. Carole & Tuesday wants to believe in the best in people, and so it offered a finale that attested that generational bridges truly can be built, and that people like Tuesday’s mother can be reached. The real world isn’t actually full of evil Jerries whispering hate into the minds of Valaries – our Valaries provide their own hate, and our crumbling global order is based more in a failing and inhumane economic structure than individual acts of villainy. But while stories that precisely articulate the subtleties of modern injustice are extremely valuable (and Carole & Tuesday has at times been pretty sharp in its recognition of today’s issues), it’s ultimately meant more to inspire than inform, and that resounding cheer of “mother, mother, mother” has been keeping me smiling for days.

Seeing all of C&T’s stars reunite for one last song was a thrill unto itself; seeing them actually sing that song, building off of each other, and rising above the suffering that has tormented so many of them, was one of the year’s most rewarding moments. Though the Mars Brightest arc featured some frustrating dramatic missteps, and I think the show overall would have been stronger with a dash more texture for its main cast, I still absolutely love the sunny slice of hope that we received. Carole & Tuesday is one of Watanabe’s strongest productions, and one of 2019’s best shows.

Though I was worried Blade of the Immortal wouldn’t be able to maintain the appeal of its standout first episode, its art design, layouts, and general energy level have remained strong through its second and third episodes. Director Hiroshi Hamasaki has proven himself to be a phenomenal match for this material; his dreamlike use of light saturation, mixed media flourishes, and dignified pairing of beautiful environmental shots and alienating too-intimate closeups offers a sense of clear atmosphere and regal solemnity to what is fundamentally a sturdily written but fairly pulpy samurai drama. The overall effect is similar to the kind of “dignified pulp” appeal of something like Ninja Scroll, where over-the-top action drama is given dramatic weight largely through the confidence of the direction, and unwavering self-seriousness of the characters. Hamasaki’s creative direction easily mitigates the show’s limitations in terms of animation fluidity, resulting in one of the most stylish and entertaining action shows of recent years.

Meanwhile, Vinland Saga’s fourteenth episode was almost certainly its most powerful and effectively executed episode so far, as we dove into one of the one-off vignettes that Makoto Yukimura does so goddamn well. As Askeladd continued his seemingly doomed march across Wales, we experienced his raid on a quiet village from the perspective of the villagers themselves, witnessing with awful clarity the brutality of Askeladd’s way of life.

Yukimura is generally good at humanizing even his most vile characters, and Askeladd is a man of such charisma and complexity that it’s easy to forget he is most fundamentally a mass murderer. The rage Yukimura feels at the inhumanities we inflict upon each other in service of unattainable glory is always simmering beneath the surface of his narratives, and at times like this, that rage bubbles up and demands your attention, reminding you that it’s easy to forgive monsters if those monsters are your friends. And ultimately, this episode’s focus character offered a kind of “forgiveness” for Askeladd in the most cynical, Yukimura-esque possible way – by reminding us that each character in this show is wedded to a societal chain of some kind, and that “rising above” the enslavement of your worldview and time period might only be possible through such a cataclysm as the arrival of Askeladd to your town, destroying all your ingrained ideas of righteousness and pious service.

Askeladd, like the protagonist Hachi of Yukimura’s Planetes, is ultimately both a rich and tragic character in his own right, and a man who embodies what his society allows people to be. Born of a stolen and abused mother, he knows there is no righteousness in nobility, and no justice in god’s will. He is a man apart from the chains of his time, but simply understanding the terms of your existence is a far cry from overcoming them. All he can do is perpetuate these brutal cycles for his own survival, and occasionally create a few more broken people like him.

After roaring out of the gate with the ferocious battle of its first episode, Legend of the Galactic Heroes’ second season has returned to its usual deliberate pacing, setting up conflicts in both the Alliance and Empire with the confidence of a story that knows it’s a goddamn classic. Both Reinhard and Yang remain fascinating characters that are remarkably easy to root for, whether you side with Reinhard’s starry-eyed dream of a truly just society (built on a whole lot of guillotining corrupt nobles), or agree with Yang’s skepticism regarding a true change in human nature, and support his quiet battle for a temporary peace.

Either one of these characters would make for the centerpiece of a terrific political drama, and their coexistence within this narrative underlines its ambition as a weary and history-minded catalog of the human condition. Even lesser episodes of LoGH are still full of barbs like episode sixteen’s reflection on the moral poison of privilege, and each new turn falls into place with absolute confidence. It’s a weird sort of relief to watch a show where you know that whatever else happens, the writing is always going to be excellent.

And finally, the first genuinely manga-based episode of My Hero Academia’s third season felt mostly functional, executing on an exposition-heavy transition segment with relative polish, but not much flair. Though I thought the production brought a reasonable sense of intensity to Overhaul’s faceoff with the League of Villains, it’s hard to match the gritty appeal of Horikoshi’s best manga layouts, and the introduction of Sir Nighteye wasn’t really all that interesting in the manga, anyway. The preamble of Overload’s arc demands a lot more board-setting than most prior My Hero Academia arcs, given the scale of the conflict and number of characters involved, meaning it’ll likely still be some time before season four gets to really show off.

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