I like how things getting fixed after kyoborgs wreak havoc have an explanation besides anime magic. Wait, ひろがる means spreading or expanding (at least according to my internet searchesbut also sounds like Hero Girl? Sora’s VA was fun this ep. I looked her up and I guess she’s Charlotte in Princess Principal and Tokime in Fuuto Tantei, which are two characters pretty unlike Sora. Sky Punch was pretty awesome and I guess that was Yuu Yoshiyama again? I like Skearhead getting a bit more depth? and Sora getting a bit more character development from it.

Between this and 16bit this season, I’m appreciative of how squeaky Aoi Koga can get. Obviously Ageha is the best of the Precures this season because she can eat the most. Is Battamonda doing a hot dog/coffee combo? Or is the cup just coffee cup like? Kinda seems dangerous on the stomach. I guess Mashiro is chill with Battamonda even after that last ep with the henshin? Skearhead just happening on Monda and Mashiro kinda makes me wonder what he does when he’s not on screen, I guess he just takes walks or something. Was kinda hoping kyoborg would shoot hot dogs and mustard and relish and what not but I guess those coffee cup things are good too. Looks like maybe we’re getting hints of things ramping up towards end of series with the direct confrontation of Skearhead and the next ep preview.

Good to have this show back after a week break. Kinda wonder if there were dinosaurs in Skyland. I mean, they have dragons and birds so why not. Life’s Journey yahoo! does seem to cover quite the range of topics though, from dinosaurs to weddings (and as we all know, being a dinosaur is such a magical part of one’s life journey).

I liked the look of the opening sequence, especially with Mashiro’s little glowly light. Are pumpkin ghosts actual things? They look great in their costumes anyways. I guess overall the animation looked a bit more lively than the last couple weeks. The kids are trick-or-treating during the daytime though? Wait, is Pretty Holic a Precure thing in general? Because I remember it from Tropical Rouge i think… Not a big Battamonda fan but I liked his henshin into Cure Pumpkin (also now that I look his VA up, I did like KENN in Uchuu Kyoudai and it looks like he has a main role in iDOLISH which I’ve been meaning to get to…). Cure Majesty getting the baby treat and having to eat it when she turns back just raises more questions for me in terms of her mental age going back and forth… but also it was a pretty funny gag.

I guess we don’t get to see everybody en route to Skyland this time around and just start with everybody there. I really like that “hammoak” pun, I guess that’s a subs-only thing? (my Japanese is not great ,… at all, but I’m hearing “kaze no ue no ki no ha”). I guess Tsubasa is a bird riding on top of a bigger bird huh. What a coincidence that the members of the Dragon Tribe are all kinda the same colors as our main crew huh. I kinda wonder if the Dragon Tribe, namely the purple one, is weirded out by Ellee’s age change. Tsubasa and his complexes with flying and the Dragon Tribe and the momentary Chekhov’s leaves were a nice little bit. Does Skearhead really have a mind palace or is that just his weird way of saying he’ll remember this.

I’m a fan of goats. The last goats I remember seeing in anime were in Gundam shows and movies. I like their tendency to climb on top of things but I guess we didn’t get that this ep. That squirrel bit with it posing and having a big smile on its face after Sora sneezed was a little weird lol.

Also a fan of when anime take place in more rural settings like Gin no Saji, Sakura Quest, Non Non Biyori, Hanasaku Iroha, Yuru Camp, etc etc etc etc etc. The shot of the fields reminds me a lot of parts of California, but then again I guess those fields look like a lot of places. Anyways, I liked the backgrounds in this ep with the smudgey leaves.

alright, holding off on the otona precure for now since i haven’t seen the prequel series to it but i’m here for hirogaru sky. animation quality seemed to dip a little bit compared to previous eps? characters seem to be drawn a little weirdly, especially when they’re a little further away in the scene. Bits of the fight looked pretty good though and felt yuu yoshiyama-ish. Anyways, it was a nice episode. It’s nice seeing Ageha in her role as a nursery school teacher and how she engages with the kids.

Finished binging Tropical Rouge at the beginning of the week and then there was a gap of no mahou shoujo anime during the week but then here we are again. Overall, the animation was pretty solid but the lower-res versions of Mashiro and Sora were kinda freaky looking when they were walking up the hill around the 8:25 mark. I found Battamonda funnier this ep than last, I guess he works better in smaller doses for me. Surgery seemed a little bit extreme for pitcher’s elbow but I guess it’s an option if things don’t improve after 6 months? Chroniclon is still pretty hype after the 3rd-ish time.

• I think the anime I looked forward to most week-to-week was Genjitsu no Yohane. Yeah, the plot reused a lot of elements throughout to keep it going and the pacing was a little weird, but it was one of the prettier shows, the fantasy world was interesting, we got new Aqours jams (and the OST was great), and Yoshiko/Yohane was one of my favs from Love Live Sunshine.
• Undead Girl Murder Farce, despite it being maybe not my usual genre of preference, was probably the best overall anime of the season I watched (mostly thanks to the director from Kaguya and all the great, inventive visuals).
• Helck isn’t the prettiest anime visually, but it’s got a director who can balance humor and seriousness in Tatsuo Satou (director of Kidou Senkan Nadesico and Uchuu no Stellvia among other things) and it shows and so it’s been pretty enjoyable.
• Hirogaru Sky! Precure has been pretty solid. Not my favorite installment of Precure (been watching through Tropical Rouge and I think I like that one more, maybe because of its humor and weirdness) and it definitely has its fair share of obvious animation quality dips, but the last couple eps have had really energetic and lively animation with pretty background art so we’ll see where we go from here.
• Shinigami Bocchan to Kuro Maid 2nd Season has been alright. Never was the prettiest show, but this season has had some nicer-than-usual animated moments and bigger plot lines are coming into play so maybe I like it more than season 1?
• wasn’t expecting that much from it (and maybe I like other Naomi Oozora demon-ish shows more than this one) but Lv1 Maou to One Room Yuusha was pretty fun and the longer plotlines driving the events were pretty interesting.

And yeah there’s Zom 100 which is great but is quite a bit further from done than everything else and who knows when it’ll finish…

I kinda barely remember who Battamonda was tbh, feels like his episodes were so long ago, I guess his temper was the thing that defined him (and still does). Whenever I hear “toki wa kita”, I think of Machikado Mazoku. I suppose “I wuv it so much” is a bit on the longer side for a sentence but I’m kinda giving up on tracking Ellee’s speech growth.

The use of blur and shadows was pretty nice this ep, particularly when Battamonda dropped his brush and the focus shifted from the sketchbook to the brush.

Eh, not so much of a fan of this ep. Battamonda’s expressions were nicely animated, but the back and forth thing didn’t really land with me. And it was kinda obvious with the full transformations and attack sequences they had to pad things out a bit (although yeah, the chroniclon one still looks great). Are they trying to draw parallels between Ellee’s liking Mashiron’s books and the Cure Majesty closing the chroniclon?

I guess being Cure Majesty is rubbing off on Ellee’s speech abilities? “Descend, mystical nobility! Cure Majesty!” seems pretty complicated for a toddler to say. Or maybe the scriptwriters are abandoning trying to organically develop toddler speech patterns… I kinda like how Ellee’s patty-cake affinities paid off with opening the ruins, which are incidentally reminding me of Link to the Past. Also, I guess we foreshadowing again with Ellee saving Mashiro in her play fight at the beginning of the ep. I wonder if Ellee could’ve figured out the hands thing like Cure Majesty did.

Anyways, I’m pretty sure Minoton wanted to defeat the Precures even before the undergu energy shenanigans? I still can’t unhear Kaguya with Cure Majesty. Nice that we got new music cues this ep. The fight scene animation looked nice and energetic too. This episode’s themes were pretty nice with the ideas of trust and protection and how they intermingle. Majestic Chroniclon kinda feels similar to Mix Palette (whatever that’s supposed to actually do) but whatever, the animation is really cool and they get to do Majestic Halation, which of course inevitably reminds me of Snow Halation, which is good.

I can’t imagine the mental whiplash of being non-toddler Cure Majesty (who doesn’t seem to act like a toddler) and toddler Ellee and kinda hurts my head to think about, like things she would only understand as a non-toddler but still somehow remembering in a way as a toddler? In any case, it’s fun having Aoi Koga using a non-toddler voice for Cure Majesty because it’s easier to imagine Kaguya saying all the lines.

Was kinda half-expecting “ora-ora-ora” or “muda-muda-muda” with punch flurries from Ellee but I guess “da-da-da-da-da-da” works too (and I guess we got “muda muda muda” in a way from Minoton later). The colored-pencil-ish coloring with the thick outlines was a neat aesthetic. Also, I guess the blurry hands she did next was a Bruce Lee reference?

Ellee the princess starts glowing purple and then an mysterious 5th Precure appears conspicuously with Ellee’s purple colors and calling herself Cure Majesty 👀? And all of this after the whole first bit of Ellee dressing up as all the Precures and then deciding on this purple dress instead 👀 👀 👀 👀 👀? And the ep begins with Ellee drawing herself into the picture with purple 👀 👀 👀 👀 👀 👀 👀 👀 👀 👀? Cure Majesty’s identity is truly a mystery…

In other news, the show seems to be speedrunning Ellee’s talking abilities, now with saying everybody’s names and “I hate you” and “I love you” and cheering on the Precures. The (obviously not foreshadowing things are about to happen) reflecting of Sora on their situation and the temporality (is that even a word) of it all was nice (also, I’m pretty sure out of everyone she’s the one most able to watch Ellee grow up… or maybe all of them will be able to see Ellee grown up 👀 👀 👀 👀 👀👀 👀 👀 👀 👀👀 👀 👀 👀 👀👀 👀 👀 👀 👀👀 👀 👀 👀 👀).

The animation took a big step-up today. The lighting in general was quite nice like during the car scene and Cure Majesty’s hype arrival and the background art for the scene of the fight was quite detailed. Also, the fight included some angles to the Precure moves that I don’t think we’ve seen before (could be wrong on that though). It was kinda funny to see Skearhead bring his hand to his head when he was fighting off Cure Majesty (although I suppose his sphere already turned gold so he already lost).

i guess it shouldn’t be surprising that a skylander can’t swim (although i guess sora has seen lakes before? skyland has lakes? do they float in the sky and i guess letters aren’t mixed up for geographical figures like everything else in skyland. also the following scene answered my question already). why does tsubasa swim like salmon jumping from rivers? how do feathers and water work for non-waterfowl?

now ellee can even walk in water. sora getting thick outlines during the floating segment was fun animation-wise (also the beach ball hitting). the fish swimming weirdly half to the side not so much. minoton’s shading looks better this ep though (and having watched a versailles on bara ep right before this, the sunrays looked vaguely dezaki-esque). sora got the newtype flash (similar sound effect too? i guess it’s mb an intended reference?) when locating the watermelon.

the ocean added nice variety to the fight and it resting on the ocean was pretty fun (and also all the rarararararas). probably one of the best ranborg fights of this iteration thus far and plus the non-fight events like sora not being able to swim actually played into the fight which was nice. also i’m not quite sure what the mix palette does anymore hah.

Ah, large houses and magical girl shows, it was bound to happen in this show at some point (although the only thing coming to my mind right now is Cardcaptor Sakura, well the ranborg fight reminds me of another magical girl show but maybe mentioning the name would be too spoilery).

Look how far we’ve come in this series, Ellee is speaking rather coherently this episode. Now that I think about it, Sora’s cape (particularly during her transformation) kinda reminds me of Takuto from Star Driver. So I guess the whole house got ranborged and also everything inside of it and also there’s a suit of armor left behind in the house?

The ending was kinda weird, like when did they have time to figure out who the family was and also conveniently when that gets brought up the family shows up lol. Also what’s the whole thing about Marron talking and how would a little girl end up with a sentient stuffed animal with I guess psychic powers? Does she know Marron talks? Eh, whatever, let’s just say it’s the power of childhood wonder and imagination. I guess the first half was nice enough and it was nice seeing Ellee have more agency and be buddies with Marron (although I guess it was kind of a Sora focused episode?), kinda feels like a continuation of Ellee’s communicative abilities like what happened with the animals earlier. In a semi-related topic, Marron kinda reminds me of how Beanie Babies used to have normal-sized eyes and then I think they started getting designed with bigger and bigger eyes?

Whenever I hear the last name Saotome, Getter Robo pops into my head.

Sora would be too OP for the show if everything were explained to her in the context of being a hero.

It’s kinda funny that one of the sisters is Kaguya and then other Kaguya’s VA is Ellee’s VA. Also, Elle didn’t know how to walk at the beginning of the series and now she’s walking on stage in front of people *~*~*character growth *~*~*.

I guess the ranborg’s tentacles were wires? The ranborg doing 👉👈 was pretty funny. Sora and Tsubasa’s teaming up move was fun, is it the first time they’ve done that this series?

I liked the Ageha’s retort to Minoton to give some context to the sisters’ always mentioning fun and smiles, was getting a little worried that we wouldn’t get that payoff for a bit. Ageha getting to show off her kid skills and her sisters’ support of it all was pretty nice too.

Feels like this ep is a bit of a missed opportunity to mix up the usual pairings and also cement the themes of appreciating qualities of other people by being thrown in their shoes and having to learn about airplanes, use makeup, etc. by having them use their newfound abilities in the fight but eh, it was a fun enough episode. I liked the little Master Roshi pig and the door monster saying what they are kinda reminded me of Sailor Moon.

alright, recently finished up Futari wa Precure and binged this series up till now so now I can participate in weekly discussion things. Is (American) football big enough in Japan to have football pads and what not around (because of course I as an American have at least one set for every room)? Maybe I shouldn’t think about it too hard… I kinda wonder if Skyland tapirs and skunks have blue variants too (ahem, tatapirs and skuskunks, excuse me).

Kinda was curious to see a capybara ranborged but the inanimate object is a better candidate. Was it just me or did this week’s ranborg and Minoton kinda lack shading compared to other things? I guess things that aren’t hair and aren’t metal don’t really get a whole lot of shading now that I pay more attention to it… but I guess compared to other shiny things the dinosaur didn’t seem quite as shiny,… eh oh well. Anyways, it’ll be interesting to see how Ellee’s communicative abilities get explored more, especially since she’s a baby and part of the way this series as shown her growth is her growing ability to vocalize her thoughts.

The octopus kinda reminds me of the SPECTRE logo from James Bond. The catch with the time magic sounds pretty interesting and kinda makes me think of other anime dalliances with time. The whole episode was fun, maid Walter was fun and I liked the chibi squiggly animation of the flashback.

Tonosama kinda vaguely reminds me of Chrono Trigger, I guess he’s what would happen if you mashed up Frog and Robo. Wouldn’t a bench be hard to swing by yourself? Especially for kids, kinda feels like something you’d have on a porch to lazily rock on but eh, at least it’s infinitely froggier now.

Fun super-sentai-ish sorta fight and kinda felt Symphogear-y for a moment (except the characters weren’t “actually” singing the songs so more Revue Starlight-y?). Kinda weird Crunchyroll sub translation of “kokoro no oto” to Resonance (especially with other direct mentions of “heart” in the dialogue of this ep) but eh.

Fun episode and the ED was nice. I don’t remember Hiroshi Kamiya’s character being that … straightforward with his desires (he kinda felt like other character’s he’s voiced in this ep hah) but it’s been awhile since S1. The animation is a bit more wooden than I remembered but there was some decent character animation like Zain’s face getting stretched. And yeah, nice sweet moment at the end.

Should rewatch (and reread) YKK one of these days, both are great and I think about the sort of mono no aware-related themes presented in them every now and then. Maybe it’s a bit harder for me to separate YKK and Aria in my head because of the mentioned Choro Club OST overlap and the watercolor sort of look they both take on at times… Although the post mentions layers with respect to Quiet Country Cafe, that actually brings to mind some of the bits of the first OVA series that I found the most memorable in

I really liked the transition from the dark, deserted town streets to the lighted ones with all the banners with it floating and flickering in the sky. Also that part with Aya recounting how she lost her body, with her glowing floating head and that figure emerging from the puddle of blood was great looking too. Those two scenes sold me on following this show this season.

According to the Love Live page on the other website, the “yahoo!” was You lol.

Finding something only you can do sounds like a promising, fun Love Live-y sorta theme. I liked the super sentai poses at the end (I kinda wonder if they’re a subunit in this universe? hoping for a song from them in the next ep) and can kinda sorta see how the animals might get cured in a fantasy idol show (and am hoping I’m at least partially right).

def one of my favs of the season.

mentioned last week how i liked tsubaki’s confession scene and i like its continuation here. kvin from sakugablog has a twitter thread about this anime and mentions the weird way this show uses the traditional shoujo anime “sparkles” that float around the screen and act as transitions, using the beer from the beginning of the series of as an example. i liked how the tears were this episode’s usage of the shoujo sparkles and in particular, there was that one tear that floated in front of the flashbacks.

how runa was animated throughout the dinner was really fun. my favorite bit was when akane was holding runa up and had her hand over her mouth to keep her quiet and runa is just hanging there.

doesn’t feel like a show i should hold my breath for a s2 and things feel nicely tied up and full circle here, but it’d be a pleasant surprise. in any case, it’d be fun to see inori minase in more roles that use this voice (although i do like her usual asmr-y or lively genki voice roles).