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At long last, it is finished. The words of triumph may be spoken now. The debt is paid in full, for the 2010s Decade in Review COMES TO A CONCLUSION~! as we talk about the notable titles of 2019…that we managed to see, anyway, because truth be told we still haven’t seen a lot of the shows we wanted to from last year. NEVERTHELESS.
Introduction (0:00 – 29:07)
Remember when we used to play VOICEMAILS on the show? Not even emails, but recorded messages people sent to us? Pepperidge Farm forgot about that one, actually, but now that everyone has smartphones that are capable of making voice recordings which can be sent online, there is now much less need for us to exploit state social services for a voicemail number. So after doing the thing that we said we don’t do–talking about videogames for several minutes–we play a not so old voicemail that asks a frequently asked question whose answer remains just as flustering no matter how much the topic gets revisited over the years. Listen, if Justin Sevakis isn’t doing his column anymore, we are IN THE CLEAR to just rip off what he’s imparted unto us. On more than one occasion. To swipe a pattern from our lame duck President, some might call the sentence structure of that last one a step and a step. (“Some” in this case being “nobody until we did so, just now”.)
Promo: Right Stuf Anime (29:07 – 31:00)
By popular demand from…well, okay, literally nobody…we have once again restored communications to the North Pole to get none other than the one and only SANTA CLAUS to tell you about the Right Stuf Holiday Sale! Yes, there are daily mega deals all month along with the weekly sales and more. Plus, there’s a weekly challenge to find Ritsu, the Right Stuf mascot, hidden on all manners of sections of the website most visitors rarely check or know exist. UNTIL NOW, THAT IS. Listen, our reception to the North Pole isn’t so great. But we’re A HUNDRED PERCENT SURE that’s Santa Claus on the line.
The DECADE IN REVIEW~!: 2019 (31:00 – 2:48:03)
Listen. We understand it would have been more thematically appropriate to use the shot where he’s making a reference to the final line of Raoh while striking the triumphant pose, but the camera panned on that and we don’t have time to do that stitching together business. But we’re finished! We are DONE recapping the noteworthy titles of the last ten years, just in time for one entire year of this new decade to have elapsed.
AND WE DID IT BEFORE THE FASTKARATE 2019 GAME OF THE YEAR TOP 10 GOT WRITTEN UP! WE’RE OFFICIALLY NOT THE SLOWEST! WOOOOO!
Surprised that Daryl said The Promised Neverland manga was received well as it ended. I only ever heard how it went downhill after the kids break out.
Daryl’s praise for Jump shows in 2019 has been let down by their arc this year, which is all bad news. Dr. Stone is still going and it’s great, One Piece and MHA are fine, but most of their other series either ended or went downhill then ended, and almost all their new series turned out to suck and got canceled, including the Naruto guy’s attempt at a big comeback.
Btw, otaquest.com has a really good weekly analysis column about Jump if anyone cares for such things.
I agree that Weathering With You was a disappointment, though I’m not sure the similarities in Shinkai’s work are inherently a negative. A lot of auteur critics argue the best directors really only make one film that they refine in different ways.
Good ep!
I was in the deep depths of corporate hell in 2019, but I did manage to catch some of these things.
Promare was a 2018 title for me — caught it a few weeks into its run in Japanese theaters, along with uh… the new FLCL shows. I think I watched Promare on my 30th birthday, and due to the fact that I simply could not get on the level of the college art kids cheering in the audience was proof that I had become Old. Like, it’s a great film, but I prefer that sort of thing expanded out across 26 episodes. I did like the look of it, though.
I dug the CG Lupin, but I do agree that the story was a typical Lupin jaunt. The period setting in the 60s was nice, the animation was spot-on, and the energy was great, which was enough for me to get into the movie. One of my friends was actually involved in the promotion of the film, and on one drunken night in Shibuya, they told me that the reason why the film moved the way it did was because a lot of the key movements were actually sketched out on paper first, and then CG was applied over them, which is why the movie nails those Lupin movements in CG super well.
On the other hand… I slept through my DVR recording of Goodbye Partner, but that was probably because I had worked another 100-hour week or something. My issue with the Lupin specials in general now is that they don’t have the level of violence that they were ballsy enough to include in even the newer TV series — it definitely feels like they are aiming for a broader audience with the specials now and… it just feels watered-down to me. I miss the brazen Lupin headshots of the 90s specials.
Carole and Tuesday was great, but I felt it could have been more concentrated at 13 episodes. Watanabe excels at tight narratives, so the show feels kind of dragged out at the length it is. I did the like the political sub-plot though. Pretty rare insight on international politics from anime.
As Gerald said, Kabukicho Sherlock was crap. I checked out after the first ep. My main issue was mostly that for a show touting the Kabukicho name, it lacked any of the real grime that you really see walking the streets of that town.
Lastly, I did sit through Beastars. I thought it was very technically sound and worked well to keep you on your toes, but yeah–probably will not revisit it. And yeah, the wolf and rabbit thing is kinnnnnddddddaaaaa weird.
Anyway, congrats on making it through the decade in review. Each new installment helped me get through this hell of a year, which seems even worse for you guys in the States. Stay safe and have a happy new year.
Would it be possible for you guys to discuss the Sony takeover of Crunchyroll, if the spirit moves you.
The entire internet response seems to be , monopolies bad , which is true but may not be germane I don’t know enough & there will be less right wing porn, which seems good to me but not to the posters and is possibly not true given Darryl’s remarks about Shield Hero. So fud. Some intelligent discussion would be appreciated.
I thought the El-Melloi II Case Files anime was kind of a letdown, speaking as someone who really likes the books. The decision to skip to the third case was questionable (this is where the two confusing subtitles come from—one for the case, one to distinguish the anime from the book), since it ends the least conclusively of all of them and is probably my least favorite of the five cases in the books.
Mostly, though, I think the formula really falls apart in the one-shot stories they created to fill the first half of the series. El-Melloi II really needs breathing room to introduce weird magic concepts before it hangs the solution to a mystery on them. Cases in the books range from 400 to about 1,000 pages, with most clocking in around 700, and all open with a lecture on some area of magic that will be essential to solving the mystery, making it much more fair play. (The books also have diagrams, floor plans, etc. that help with this.) The short cases are mostly an excuse for a parade of cameos for characters who are popular but don’t appear in the books they chose to adapt. They even cut parts of the longer case the show is named after in order to make room for more.
You can’t help losing the narration when it’s animated, which is a shame, since Case Files has easily the best prose and best narrative voice of any of the Type-Moon novels (helped immensely by being the only one with first-person narration instead of third-person limited).
More recently, the English dub, which is the selling point of the overpriced Aniplex box set, gave everyone American accents. The whole show is set in the UK and not a single person in it is American. I imported all the books as they came out, so I’m probably about as big a fan as they could hope to sell to, but there’s no way in hell I’m shelling out more than $10 per episode to hear a woman from rural Wales sound Californian.
I’ll relisten soon, but I don’t remember you guys mentioning the first season of Kaguya-Sama: Love is War. Really funny comedy by the director of Rakugo Shinju with a great visual flare. I think the dynamic direction improves the manga, which is a little plain by comparison.
Also, the Konosuba: Legend of Crimson. Nothing more or less than 90 minutes of more Konosuba. I like Konosuba, so I liked it.
About the theory that people don’t watch HIDIVE because it doesn’t have an app on your favorite game console or Smart TV… don’t you suppose it’s also possible that HIDIVE casual viewership is held back by its lack of a free-with-ads plan like Crunchyroll and Funimation have? It’s at least possible to watch those services without being a paying member; with HIDIVE, you’re in for $5/month, and there’s no way around it.
Speaking of HIDIVE, I kind of wondered if anyone would mention summer 2019’s blast of Mari Okada social anxiety: “O Maidens in your Savage Season”. One cour, goes down easy, and the most hilariously cringey performance of The Blue Hearts’ “Train Train” you will ever see and hear.
I actually enjoyed Brand New Animal. How did I manage to pull off a feat so impressive? Well, my secret is I watch 100 times less shows than most anime fans. I specifically did not watch anything by Trigger save for Little Witch. I actually gave up on Kill La Kill, since it was so blatantly JUST a fanservice show, the “serious” justification for naked people being naked was pure retardation. I can watch silly shows, but I cannot watch stupid shows. Am I to intelligent? No one will ever know.
Also, your ability to enjoy BNA will rise once you realize that Michiru is not the main character, she is just the audience surrogate (also why she looks so much like your average anime girl DESPITE being a weretanuki). It’s the werewolf who is the real protagonist, it is his story.