Anime Power Ranking Ballot (Week Ending Nov 8)

My APR ballot for this week:

  1. Your Lie in April 5
  2. Parasyte 5
  3. Bahamut 5
  4. Amagi Brilliant Park 6
  5. Mushi-shi 4

kimiuso5

What an emotional roller coaster Your Lie In April is: this is the best non-performance episode yet, with some of the best-directed visuals this season, in the service of a teenage melodrama that is so immediate and so true to my own internal experience of that age. I understand that this is, among other things, what repels others, but it’s rare to see a show that speaks directly to my heart, including all of the painful and uncomfortable parts. Frankly, KimiUso  transports me back to my own musically inclined, guilt-ridden, and rescue-longing adolescence, and nothing else this season is doing that.

parasyte5Parasyte 5 is clearly some kind of turning point in the story and for our protagonist, where the full terror of the situation finally, literally hits home. The desperation and growing despair in the final scene is a mini-masterpiece of horror, eliminating whatever vestiges of humor may be left in the series and setting the show on a course for higher stakes action. I can’t wait.

shingekinobahamut3Bahamut 5 continues to astound by not only including well-animated individual duels between Favaro, Kaisar, and others, but also a tremendously epic large scale battle led by St Jeanne d’Arc. Perhaps it’s this show, not Fate Stay/Night, that should earn the nickname Unlimited Budget Works, because very little expense was spared in the volleys of trebuchets, wyverns, flaming arrows, and a collapsing organic floating ship. Studio MAPPA: the Weta Workshop of anime?

amaburi6Amagi Brilliant Park enters my ballot for the first time with the first truly laugh out loud episode (for me). It was the first episode that truly reminded me of one of my favorite comedic masterpieces, Full Metal Panic: Fumoffu, with its quick-witted humor and better pacing. Amagi Brilliant Park had suffered to some slack pacing and potted “serious” sequences in the past, but at last it hit a comedic high that proved to be the funniest thing I’ve seen this past week.

mushishi5Finally, the always gorgeous, regret-tinged Mushi-shi earns a somewhat lower place this week than in the past. The idea behind the story was great, but the solution was a bit perfunctory and pat compared to previous episodes. Mushi-shi works best when the atmosphere works hand-in-hand with the balanced, nuanced message that each episode is supposed to deliver—often about people who refuse to let go of their pasts. So far, the somewhat more positive tone of this season has been handled brilliantly, but it falters here just slightly. I am confident it will continue to be on my ballots in weeks to come, however.

OTHERS:
Psycho Pass takes a turn toward the jarring and confusing, after an extremely violent episode. We are beginning to see some of Tow Ubukata’s weaknesses on display–its approach felt like, in some ways, the rather muddled final episode of Ghost in the Shell: Arise. I felt curiously unsatisfied by the end, especially with the video game-based twist. Ender’s Game this is not.
–The Sabagebu OVA sadly dispenses with a lot of what made the original series funny (Momoka’s meanness and the surprising twists in plot, plus the narrator) in favor of self-aware fan service. It doesn’t improve things that much to proclaim how much you know it’s an OVA special, guys.
Fate Stay/Night: UBW is solid, but unremarkable at this point. The battle scenes were well-drawn as always, and it’s always nice to see Rin being tsundere, but I thought this was going to be more about her rather than Shirou. Shirou isn’t as annoying as he was in the original anime, at least, and the appearance of Rider was welcome, albeit brief. But other shows provided more kick this week.

Author: gendomike

Michael lives in the Los Angeles area, and has been into anime since he saw Neon Genesis Evangelion in 1999. Some of his favorite shows include Full Metal Alchemist, Honey and Clover, and Welcome to the NHK!. Since 2003 he has gone to at least one anime convention every year. A public radio junkie, which naturally led to podcasting, he now holds a seminary degree and is looking to become Dr. Rev. Otaku Bible Man any day now. Michael can be reached at mike.huang@animediet.net. You can also find his Twitter account at @gendomike.