Mushi-shi Season 2, interim report
Jun. 17th, 2014 10:13 amI think it's time to admit I'm not on as much of an anime kick as I was for awhile. I ended up dropping One Week Friends, so now I'm just watching the new season of Mushi-shi.
And I'll keep watching it. It's still Mushi-shi, but I would say Season 2 seems less consistent than Season 1. Like, Mushi-shi relies on a certain blend of fantasticality and arbitrariness with deft character sketches and unforced thinkiness, so that the final effect is very natural-feeling in a "magic realist" kind of vein. It's always a delicate balancing act, but it seems like Season 2 so far contains more episodes where the effect collapses and it ends up feeling just kind of groundlessly weird or even contrived. I'm thinking especially of episodes 6, 8, and 9. (There's also a moment in 6 I found unintentionally funny when they came near an action scene and seemed to panic for a second.)
Or maybe I'm just worried that we've had a couple of awkward ones in a row; a lot of the new episodes have been good. I recall liking 2, 3 and 7 especially. 4 was interesting, although it got a bit weird toward the end, and the thinky aspect in 5 was incorporated well.
And I'll keep watching it. It's still Mushi-shi, but I would say Season 2 seems less consistent than Season 1. Like, Mushi-shi relies on a certain blend of fantasticality and arbitrariness with deft character sketches and unforced thinkiness, so that the final effect is very natural-feeling in a "magic realist" kind of vein. It's always a delicate balancing act, but it seems like Season 2 so far contains more episodes where the effect collapses and it ends up feeling just kind of groundlessly weird or even contrived. I'm thinking especially of episodes 6, 8, and 9. (There's also a moment in 6 I found unintentionally funny when they came near an action scene and seemed to panic for a second.)
Or maybe I'm just worried that we've had a couple of awkward ones in a row; a lot of the new episodes have been good. I recall liking 2, 3 and 7 especially. 4 was interesting, although it got a bit weird toward the end, and the thinky aspect in 5 was incorporated well.