O Maidens in Your Savage Season ep 12. Anime of the Year.
An absolutely perfect finale to the best anime of my year (so far). It gives no simplistic resolutions and it happily revels in its hellish mess, tying everything up with a big middle finger to authority and the ideal of “purity.”
Like
A Place Further than the Universe, it’s about of group of friends trying to maintain their friendships through adversity, except instead of Antarctica, the obstacles are love, sexuality, and social norms. It acknowledges and respects that kids aren’t going to have everything figured out coming right out of high school, and it does it with all the grace of five sexually confused teenagers and several buckets of paint.
Let’s see the Fall season top that.
Symphogear XV ep 12. Good stuff from Carol. Good speech from Chris, showed how much she’s grown from S1. Good send off for Noble Red. Hibiki’s quick henshin here really showed how much the improved character art helps animation, as it let them get loose and smeary in very creative ways that they probably couldn’t have gotten away with in earlier seasons. It also let Yuuki Aoi show off her stuff.
Stick the landing,
Symphogear.
Given ep 11. The visual representation of Uenoyama’s conflicting emotions was fun. I do understand the concern that their relationship would interfere with their band. I liked how embarrassed everyone was at the photo shoot. I liked Haruki admitting to himself that Nakayama’s song and story made him want more out of his relationships.
This really feels like just the start of their story rather than the end, so I guess I’m going to have to watch the movie.
Cannon Busters ep 12. Solid action finale. Giant robots are too impersonal for my taste, but it still had some impressive shots, and Philly learned that vengeance won’t bring him any peace before he made a mistake he couldn’t come back from.
The show also definitely would have benefited from more time. Dex’s crew have great designs, and I would’ve loved to actually know their stories.
Dr. Stone ep 12. This ep turns up the tension and the stakes. Ginro literally getting shit on was pretty mean, but his story was alright. Liked Chrome demanding that Senku treat him like an equal.