Dipping back into the backlog, from the OP of the seventh run of Teekyu comes this one, which appears on screen for about one frame.

I’ve already covered Teekyu here before – including a later season even – but whatever. That being said, director Shin Itagaki has sure done some other shows since, and whilst people were quick to point to the CG of Berserk TV being the problem, the slideshow that was his WUG show, and the more recent Cop Craft, maybe points towards Itagaki’s production mentality at Millpensee being more of the issue there (particularly with The Magnificent Kotobuki being entirely passable).

But, hey, works for Teekyu, I guess.

From the original Patlabor OAVs (The Early Days, as it is typically dubbed, at least in the English world) is this effort, which I frankly could have sworn I’d posted about two months ago, but I apparently forgot entirely about.

I hadn’t actually watched the original Patlabor OAVs before, despite it being one of those things I’ve had sitting around on BD for a few years. It’s a particularly weird one given how many times I’ve seen the two feature films that follow-on from them – I’m one of those folks who started watching anime in the 90s, and it was only of those major VHS releases in the mid-90s that was being released back in the UK in complete isolation to the original series, and I’ve seen a whole bunch of the TV show, but somehow ended up not getting around to watching the OAVs even when they did become available to me.

But, anyway, back in September, the Barbican Centre in London was running a science-fiction anime season, and whilst the headline screening was basically the they somehow managed to swing a screening of the movie edition of Macross Plus in this space-year of 2019, I did end up sticking around to see the screening of the first Patlabor movie they had the following day, which seemed like a good excuse to finally get around to watching this thing.
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From the OP of Machikado Mazoku (or The Demon Girl Next Door, as streaming platforms have monikered it), perfect evidence that I’ve been somewhat slacking on this recent given that, in taking the above screenshot, I discovered that I’d already grabbed the exact same picture from when the opening was used as the ending in the first episode over a month ago. Whoops.

Still, aside from being busy recently (where, admittedly, part of being busy has involved playing an unhealthy amount of Fire Emblem Three Houses), it’s been a kind of depressing time in the anime industry recently and I’ve kind of not particularly felt the need or want to write about it in any particular fashion.
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From whichever episode of Jewelpet Sunshine I was watching the other day, used to prop up the Go table being used here by the pink Dolphin and a dragon. If you’re only vaguely aware of Sanrio’s larger Jewelpet franchise, there’s a good chance that Sunshine is the particular instalment you are aware of, mostly thanks to it’s recreation of a famous scene from Flashdance in it’s 21st episode, though it’s also a show that somehow managed to clear the music rights for Aerosmith’s I Don’t Want To Miss A Thing and even a Beatles track (and Ai o Torimodose, but that maybe isn’t quite so shocking).

Anyway, that I’m posting about this as opposed to, say, the Mikan box in that foxgirl show that I’ve totally been made aware of is largely indicative of the fact that I’ve kind of been watching sod-all this season so far outside of a couple of first episodes and Sarazanmai. I should probably catch up with Hitoribocchi or something at some point, but I have at least been using the time to endeavour to catch-up on some of the older shows I’ve been meaning to get around to, even if most of those do largely fall into the category of “Nonsense Kids Shows” (which, admittedly, is the best kind of anime).

From the current ending of the current version of GeGeGe no Kitaro, being polluted by that ass Rat-Man.

There’s probably a lot I could say about the current Gegege no Kitaro – it’s certainly one of the more reliably entertaining shows I’ve been watching over the last year, particularly as something which has, in fact, been running for a year. There’s an awful lot to be said about the fact that it’s a rarity in that it’s a franchise that has existed in multiple distinct adaptations at pretty regular 10 year intervals, often with common stories being adapted between the various iterations.

There’s probably a lot more to be said on just the way that, despite having it’s basis in comics going all the way back until the 60s, it’s surprisingly modern in it’s outlook. It’s a show that started with an obnoxious Youtuber being punished for his inconsiderate behaviour, by being consumed by a Vampire tree in an incredibly painful looking sequence, after all. It’s a show that, despite theoretically being Quality Children’s Programming, doesn’t particularly shy away from being gruesome or explicit in it’s social messaging. It’s a show that talks about the importance of not teaching whitewashed history, about organised labour and collective bargaining, about exploiting immigrants and the treatment of refugees.

It also has multiple episodes about how being terrible on social media can have implications, even if you think you are being anonymous about it.

This weeks episode, coincidentally, sees the return of the aforementioned asshole Youtuber, as he first propagates widespread knowledge of Yokai, only to turn around instigate hate mobs against them, based on flimsy evidence, all for those mad Streamer Bucks. Thematically, it’s kind of a rough episode to be airing this week.

Anyhow, good show. I should probably actually endeavour to write something more meaningful about it once it wraps up, rather than hammering out something unplanned in the ten minutes before this Google stream starts just because I’m feeling bad about not posting anything in, errr, three months. Whoops.

(Coincidentally, geez, this new WordPress editor is garbage. Need to install one of those classic editor plugins, I guess…)