Wooper:<\/b><\/span> I\u2019m late with these posts so often that I ought to stop offering explanations \u2013 so I think I will. The Fall Season Preview will be up on time, though, and between JoJo, Cyberpunk, and a couple other web releases, it\u2019s looking pretty ONA-dependent, which should give us plenty of time to catch up with all the spring and summer stuff we missed. Speaking of ONAs, there was a promising one from China that dropped last month \u2013 I\u2019ve got preliminary thoughts on that show, plus a handful of others, after the jump. See you in a couple weeks!<\/p>\n It\u2019s an interesting balancing act that Kore Kaite Shine has managed thus far. Protagonist Ai Yasumi is powered entirely by her love of manga, and she\u2019s managed to establish a school club revolving around her hobby with the help of her friends, as well as demonstrate her potential as a mangaka to her mentor. There are plenty of limitations placed on her passion in these early chapters, however. Episodes 2 and 3 contained flashbacks to the hardships her teacher faced in securing an industry foothold, along with Teshima-sensei\u2019s admonition that she mustn\u2019t stake her life on manga. There\u2019s also the rude awakening to her lack of writing prowess that she experiences in episode 4 \u2013 compared to the outstanding art of new recruit Fujimori, Ai\u2019s stories receive much less praise, which clearly bothers her. She\u2019s more or less remained her cheerful self despite these discouragements, but beneath its cutaway gags and manga-esque flourishes, KKS is obviously a dramatically adept show. Its excavation motif in episode 3\u2019s flashbacks, for example, visualized the \u201cdigging\u201d necessary for a young Teshima-sensei to produce a noteworthy work, and even then, all she earned was a bitterly disappointing honorable mention. I have to imagine that Ai will eventually aim for mainstream recognition, too, but as Teshima says in these episodes, \u201cReaders are arrogant creatures.\u201d That\u2019s not just a sobering reminder of our non-creative stake in the work of manga (and anime) pros \u2013 it also foreshadows the hardships Ai will face in breaking through to an audience that may not appreciate her strange sensibilities.<\/p>\n Six years ago, an independent Chinese studio called Flint Sugar released a short film entitled Jiyi Guanli Ju (\u201cFalse Memory\u201d) with the intention of someday turning it into a series. Six weeks ago, their dream was made a reality when the first of the ONA\u2019s seven episodes released on bilibili (the other six have since premiered, as well). Six days ago, I sat down with the original short film to see whether the internet\u2019s FLCL comparisons were justified, and came away impressed. An alternately raucous and introspective affair, the False Memory pilot did boast a hint of that turn-of-the-century Gainax magic, but its rough linework and incorporation of live action photography gave the episode an identity all its own. For me, the vague mechanics of its Memory Bureau successfully reflected the unreliability of our own memories, and the action scenes eventually gave way to an emotional finish between a grieving boy and the friend that had emerged from his mind.<\/p>\n Fast forward either six years, weeks or days, and I\u2019ve now seen the first two episodes of the series proper. So far, it\u2019s more lethargic than the original, but conceptually it\u2019s still terribly intriguing \u2013 plus, it\u2019s far more polished than the pilot. Gone are the real world photographs, replaced by split screen shots and shifting aspect ratios to differentiate between the real world and the realm of memory where protagonist Guan Chao eventually finds himself. There are more Memory Bureau departments and employees now, but their stories haven\u2019t yet converged, and the real world mysteries established in episode 1 are unlikely to be revisited for a while. Unlike the one-and-done version from 2020, the success of the series will depend on whether all of these ideas can be synthesized by the end. Given its subject matter, though, that won\u2019t mean explaining itself so much as providing plausible interpretations for its striking images. I\u2019m down for that \u2013 are you?<\/p>\n I\u2019m in wait-and-see mode with Sayonara Lara at the moment. It\u2019s a promising original series in a sea of manga adaptations, so I\u2019m sure to watch until the end, but I\u2019m not truly invested after four episodes. That\u2019s likely due to the mismatch of Lara\u2019s straightforward mission (find her true love in order to save her family) and the decidedly less straightforward obstacles to said mission (a giant dagger floating in the clouds, Lara\u2019s long-lost sister scheming in the background). It\u2019s unclear whether that dagger can be perceived by non-ocean dwellers \u2013 when Lara asks her new friend Mari whether she can see it, Mari evasively responds, \u201cHow many times are you going to ask me that?\u201d I\u2019ve got all sorts of questions about Mari\u2019s true identity, whether Lara\u2019s quest for romance can actually revive her family, and whether we\u2019re stuck in some kind of time loop (since the prince from Lara\u2019s first life as a human said, \u201cIt feels like we\u2019ve met somewhere before\u201d).<\/p>\n Put all of that aside, though, and you\u2019re left with a fantastic-looking anime, which makes it easy to watch along and wait for more breadcrumbs to be dropped. I love the use of late cel-era shoujo character designs, particularly for episode 4\u2019s unlucky-in-love Hime Maibara, who looks every bit the princess her name would suggest (even if Lara eventually learns she\u2019s just an ordinary high school). The show\u2019s solid, non-gradated color design is appreciated, as was the boxing animation in episode 3 \u2013 in fact, that was probably my favorite episode thus far, since it shed some crucial light on how the death of Mari\u2019s mother shaped her into the person she is now. There are a few other characters who could use similar fleshing out, though (looking at you, Lisa).<\/p>\n When I reviewed The Ninth Jedi\u2019s backdoor pilot episode in 2021, I called it \u201ca plausible launching pad for a much larger story,\u201d and now that story is here \u2013 only it doesn\u2019t feel \u201cmuch larger\u201d than anything. Sure, its band of central characters are on a planet-hopping recruitment mission, searching for allies against a villain who threatens the galaxy, but an abundance of locations alone doesn\u2019t make for a grand adventure. For that, you need a sense of imagination, which The Ninth Jedi lacks entirely. Its antagonist is a masked man dressed in black with a planet-destroying superweapon at his disposal, for God\u2019s sake. All the scenes of Ethan gathering intelligence on the giga-laser at the enemy base are ripped straight from the mainline films, and the speeches that Juro gives to his former compatriots are painfully tiresome. A portion of episode 2, for example, takes place at an isolationist mining colony, whose dwarflike laborers refuse to join the resistance until protagonist Kara gets in on the preaching, nearly throwing herself off a balcony in her zeal. Of course, one assenting voice in the crowd becomes two, and then ten and twenty, until everyone is clamoring to join the losing side of a seemingly unwinnable conflict. If this trope hadn\u2019t already been employed a dozen times in Star Wars stories (not to mention Lord of the Rings, which director Kenji Kamiyama has also been involved with), it might not be so disappointing, but it has been, so it is. Questions about the loyalties of Kara\u2019s father, or why the Big Bad wields a blue lightsaber, aren\u2019t nearly intriguing enough for me to sink any more hours into TNJ\u2019s six remaining episodes.<\/p>\nKore Kaite Shine \u2013 2-4<\/h2>\n
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<\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n<\/figure><\/div>\nJiyi Guanli Ju \u2013 0-2<\/h2>\n
<\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n<\/figure><\/div>\nSayonara Lara \u2013 2-4<\/h2>\n
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<\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n<\/figure><\/div>\nJaadugar: A Witch in Mongolia \u2013 2-4<\/h2>\n
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