Magical Circle

[Side A] Fall 2017 – Week 3 in Review

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Ever since coming back from the United Kingdom, I’ve found myself busier than ever. It’s like I forgot I ever had a job in the first place, and here I am juggling a bi-weekly blog review on top of editorial articles for something I’m passionate in.

But that’s precisely WHY I’m trying to such lengths to preserve this little obsession of mine. I spent the last week serving as a judge panel, reading scientific research entries by resident hospital staff, ranging from amazingly well-done to insufferably unbearable. So consider this my little pick-me-upper to round off a hectic week. And yeah, sorry for the delays and incessant excuses. If anyone out there actually looks forward to my entries — delayed as they may be — then thank you, thank you!

So yeah, third week in review. I decided to lump in the two shows that were left from Summer 2018 in [Side A], while everything else goes into [Side B]. As far as this group of misfits is concerned, they’re currently stacking up in a way I wasn’t quite expecting. Quite an interesting group, indeed.
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Summer 2017 – Season End Ranking

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I dunno about you, but I actually, legitimately enjoyed this season. Maybe it’s because I cherry-picked my titles early on; or maybe it’s because I intentionally went for a light viewing to save myself the agony of having to trudge through so many shows once they hit the back burner. Regardless, it was fun, and most of the shows (I can say with some confidence) actually lived up to their initial hype and made me feeling a little sad to see them go. Although to a certain extent, you could say that I was hoping for something a little “deeper” from some of the titles, but these are minor quibbles to the overall satisfaction of me being able to watch these shows without a distasteful hiccup at the end.

So yeah, same jazz as always, shows are ranked from bottom to top with a final rating at the end. Do share your thoughts about any of the shows I watched in the comments below. And with that, let’s do this! Continue reading →

Summer 2017 – Mid-Season Round Up

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Okay, it’s been a while since I wrote anything, partly because I think I burned myself out trying to write some in-depth analysis articles on Owarimonogatari, but I personally think the essays, themselves, aren’t really shaping up the way I want them to. For now, I’m just gonna put that aside and clear the table for this mid-season round up and then, perhaps, go on to some other reviews and/or editorials.

That and the fact that I’ve been basically enjoying my newly-earned “freedom” by sleeping in till mid-day and playing enough Splatoon 2 to get me an A-Rank in all of the Ranked Battle modes. If any of you guys out there play Splatoon 2, feel free to add me up as a friend (my friend code is SW-0054-9953-4514). I’ve always wanted to take on the League Battles, but I have no friends who own a Switch to play it with. *sniff*

Anyway, back to the Animu. This season is surprisingly functional enough to be good — and I say that quite deliberately in that there is a particular reason as to why each show is working (in one way or the other) to actually make my collective viewing enjoyable. You could say it’s a funny little happenstance that these shows can actually complement one another to make up for whatever shortcomings one or the other might have. And so with that said, let’s run down how all the shows are doing in this mid-season review!

As usual, these are ranked top to bottom, with a tl;dr in bold for your convenience. So with that said, let’s do this! Continue reading →

Summer 2017 – Week 4 & 5 in Review

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Okay, so apparently someone here doesn’t know how to count. And that same person couldn’t half-ass himself to correct his previous post so he decided to just combine weeks 4 and 5 in one post since for some weird reason, one show had two episodes aired in the same week. I’ve always been terrible at timing these week-in-review posts, anyway, so I guess it’s about time people were used to it by now.

But then I realized that a problem with my weekly review naming convention is that episode numbers can be ambiguous to the actual week in question, meaning if my naming sense for the week is totally off, it can throw of a reader unless I explicitly state what episode I’m talking about.

So to reduce confusion, I’ll be including the episode number in the header titles for each of the shows to be discussed — that way, no matter how stupidly I label my week-in-review post, you can be assured that you’re reading the right thoughts on the right episode.

So with that aside, let’s run down just what happened this week in animuland. It’s been a bit tiring — both in real life and in anime itself — but hey, that’s the way it is once the honeymoon of the first few weeks of a season has ended. Continue reading →

Summer 2017 – Week 3 in Review

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Ed, you said you’d forego weekly reviews in favor of editorials, what gives? Maybe I should give you a forehead flick every time you change the specs!?

Yeah, pretty much. I’m ready to receive any number of forehead flicks if it means I get to do my regular spiel of sharing my weekly thoughts on anime, so sue me. At the very least, there’s a more manageable number of titles not requiring a split post to fit them all, so I feel more inclined to doing it more than before. Old habits die hard, I guess.

Anyway, we’re starting at week 3, because apparently I didn’t miss THAT much at the start of the season. So sit back and relax as we run through just what happened in week 3 of Summer 2017! Continue reading →

Lost in Translation #16 – Magical Circle Guru Guru

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Hey guys, time for another Lost in Translation! Truth is, this entry is mostly about reference spotting, but it goes without saying that a big chunk of the enjoyment on this series banks on the viewer’s understanding of the Dragon Quest franchise. That’s not to say that you can’t appreciate it without having first-hand experience of the game; rather, a lot of the jokes can be missed otherwise. So hopefully, these little entries can help enrich your viewing experience if you’re one of those people who hasn’t played Dragon Quest back in the 80’s.

Because the truth is, the video gaming culture in the 80’s and early 90’s pitted two franchises as main rivals as far as RPGs were concerned: Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy. For many Japanese friends I’ve met, they say that it was Dragon Quest that was far more popular than Final Fantasy, and it wasn’t until the Super Famicom (Super Nintendo Entertainment System for those in the West) that the Final Fantasy series really started to take off. Likewise, it isn’t that common to find hardcore Dragon Quest fans in the west given how well-exposed Final Fantasy is.

But putting that into perspective, that explains why a large chunk of the parodies in Magical Circle Guru Guru focuses on Dragon Quest, in general. Of course, I’m not claiming to have noticed all of the references in this pilot episode alone, so if you’ve noticed anything, do feel free to share it in the comments below! So sit back as we run down some interesting tidbits from episode 1 of Magical Circle Guru Guru! Continue reading →

Summer 2017 – First Impressions

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I know this is nearly a month late, and I wasn’t really expecting to have to do one of these, but man was I impressed with what shows I grabbed this Summer 2017. Granted I cherry-picked these titles from a list of suggested titles from another writer whose taste I pretty much trust, for the first time in a long time I’m actually really, really happy with the titles as early as the 1st episode.

That said, I only added five shows to my list of three on-going titles, and after including Owarimonogatari (ge) later in August, will make nine shows this Summer 2017. I can actually work with something like that; anything more than 10 titles is pretty ridiculous at this point. So yeah, hopefully if you’re still interested, join me as I do a quick run down of impressions on the shows I’ll be watching this happy, happy summer season. Continue reading →