Nemu and Keigo-focused episode: Nemu wants to open up to Keigo, but she remembered what her mom taught her. She lost control of her floating magic. But on the other hand, Keigo, struggling with controlling the levitation ring Nico gave him, remembered his figure skating skills to finally utilize it and save Nemu.

Perhaps, that’s the moment Nemu fell in love with Keigo. Great episode.

The ED is extended, so don’t skip it!

@rikka@ani.social

Yes

Marin went full Bocchi mode when she learned she gained weight.

The park date scene is so cute. Marin is so happy there.

@rikka@ani.social

My rating of Vivy is 9, and thought Takopi is much, much better overall. I may agree with you that in terms of twist endings, Vivy (and also 86) could be better. As to why? Perhaps it’s better explained there. Certainly, in terms of the plot twist, Death Note and Steins;Gate did it better than both of them.

As to why I would rate it a 10 (not just that, but the best anime, period), I took into account the totality of the work. Long story short, once all factors are considered, the conclusion is that Takopi’s just built better.

• Format: It didn’t force itself to last a whole season. The staff deliberately chose to adapt a whole story in six episodes. Remember how we wish Death Note ended sooner?

• Consistency in storytelling quality. Partly why I thought this work outranked my previous #1 Violet Evergarden is because its episodes 12 and 13 are relatively weak, dragging the “quality average” down somewhat.

• Consistency in art style and quality. Even more impressive is the studio choosing to stick to 2D. Their 3DCG in Spice and Wolf (2024) is ass. They made the right decision to keep that to a minimum. I may be biased on hand-drawn animation styles since upon retrospect, I tend to rate those works highly (Frieren, Ghibli and Shinkai’s works, the WMT series, etc.).

• Amazing episode direction, all of them

• Amazing music direction. Very few times do discordant music (the mood of the scene does not match the music) work. They did it. Very well.

• Comparing the manga and anime ratings, I don’t recall another animation that stayed faithful to the source material AND elevating the experience at the same time—except music anime, which should be straightforward why.

• Takopi made me feel emotions that I’ll remember long after I watched it. Vivy didn’t evoke the same. Perhaps a lot of those who rated Takopi that highly thought likewise. I cried hard twice in the most recent rewatch of Violet Evergarden the Movie. Takopi’s total length is similar if you combine all episodes. I cried hard in 5 out of 6.

Nemu and Keigo getting shy implies they like each other. Nico unintentionally friendzones herself by writing a letter of friendship with Morihito, but Nemu theorizes it could be broken by eliciting a strong enough reaction from Morihito.

He doesn’t know better, but Nico’s smile that reminds him of their childhood selves is a neuron activation. Strong enough to break the curse, it looks like.

@rikka@ani.social

Awesome episode. Was teary-eyed on Marin’s performance as Rei.

Maomao would be proud.

I just have to put a fake subtitle.

Banner:

@rikka@ani.social

I’ll bite because I want to give you the benefit of the doubt. My next question is: What do you wish to happen next?

Made in Abyss and Violet Evergarden

Writing-wise, Haikyuu is basically the volleyball version of

You’re not wrong. From my POV, the connection is made for a different reason. Pasting my recommendation reason in MAL:

Afaik it’ll only work if Lemmy has native support for post flairs

Chihayafuru, meanwhile is 2/3 sports anime and 1/3 romance. Will recommend that as well

Oh yeah, I’m only at episode one of MDD, but it has the fingerprints of BTR all over its animation. You could tell the BTR team is working on it. Likewise, from what I see of The Fragrant Flower Blooms with Dignity, it builds upon the quality of Akebi.

It’s why I love Cloverworks so much as a studio.

A very modest and reasonable proposal

It’s the Happiness Spiral, as Kikuri would say

While waiting for this, I encourage the curious to watch Showa Genroku Rakugo Shinju. It’s an excellent audiovisual essay on rakugo.

Recently started My Dress Up Darling S2. I find the ED-style OP in episode 1 to be wild. I don’t know if it’s unique to that episode, but that is fun.

Episode 10. I didn’t (but almost) cried on the first watch. Rewatching it broke me.

I would rather not. Lemmy is not Reddit.

They’re part of the reason why censorship on most people won’t go away.

Oof, Kan-Nico and Keigo channels got their collab, but not in the way they expected. Lesson: Be careful what you post in the internet!

@rikka@ani.social