Also, the faces are top-rate.

The first time I watched the first season Bubuki Buranki, I didn't think it was very good. It wasn't until after Epizo's introduction that the show really clicked for me, although I enjoyed the fight between Kinoa and her ex-boyfriend during which his attacks consisted entirely of literal flashbacks to their Meet Cute and early relationship. Upon re-watching the first season, though, I loved the show and its absurd excuses to feature giant robots punching things at the whim of angry teenagers making faces. Perhaps I was just late in appreciating the motivations and relationships among the various factions.

You can tell this is a flashback because Rinne has barely any weight on that thing.

I'm following five mahou shoujo anime this season. Arguably, I'm following six if you include Brave Witches, but I'm not counting that one here. Surprisingly, ViVid Strike! is comfortably on top of these five, with Mahou Shoujo Ikusei Keikaku (Magical Girl Raising Project) second, and Mahou Tsukai Pretty Cure! (Maho Girls Precure!) bringing up the rear. At least that's how the ranking looks if you count separately the two shorts: Mahou Shoujo Nante Mouiidesukara. Second Season and Nazotokine.

Maybe Seiren will just be about Hikari sitting on things.

Remembered mostly for its Battle of the Best Girls, Amagami SS was an all right 2010 harem comedy with an omnibus gimmick. That is, the series as a whole consisted of multiple short parallel-universe story arcs reflecting the Amagami game's different routes. This was a structure also used by, uh, Yosuga no Sora. I guess I liked Amagami SS and its sequel Amagami SS+ Plus all right, despite containing some high-level bullshit. They at least had reasonably charming girls. Potato-kun, though, was a pretty unremarkable putz, and it was not at all clear why any of the girls (aside from Rihoko, I suppose) were into him. I can only assume every other dude in that school was a cretin like Potato-kun's pervy friend.

I'm going to assume Asseylum has lots of copies of this same dress.

Last week's "The Uncanny Valley of Military Anime" post did not explicitly name Aldnoah.Zero as one of the shows safely on either side of the valley, but I at least thought about it. Omitted for length constraints, I also did not address it because I've—for over a year now—been planning on writing a series of posts addressing various aspects of it. I think I have to admit at this point it ain't gonna happen, just like I'm never going to actually write that Pretty Cure primer or the rest of my Iriya v. Saikano comparisons. So let me at least address the part that bothers me most: The Ending. (Considerable spoilers follow.)

Damn it, Private Death Flag, where is your rifle?

The so-called "uncanny valley" occupies the spot between the clearly artificial and the standards accepted as (or indistinguishable from) genuine articles. This concept is generally applied to automata and realistic human robots which generate a sense of uneasy revulsion on the part of the viewer because they're "just not quite there." However, I am applying this concept to explain why I can't quite accept military-themed anime such as this season's Shūmatsu no Izetta and last season's Nejimaki Seirei Senki: Tenkyou no Alderamin.

Asuka drops her facade for a moment.

For the most part, I think viewers of Hibike! Euphonium consider Asuka to be a bit of a comic relief character. This is an understandable position given that she's constantly fucking with people and generally has one of the more energetic personalities on the show. Nevertheless, there have been numerous hints dropped both in the first season and in the current one suggesting that Asuka has some sort of shit going on that the viewer doesn't quite know about yet.

A more typical Asuka.

Not being familiar with the source material, I don't have any idea if there's anything to these hints, or whether we'll see them addressed this season in the remaining episodes of the show, but it seems likely. Perhaps Kyoto Animation has been showing off Chekhov's euphonium all this time with no plans to toot that horn, but I like my chances. You know what's not gonna get resolved? Reina and Taki. Never gonna happen, Reina.

Wait. They're basically standing in a giant toilet.

Nyanbo! is sort of anime, and sort of Yotsuba&!, but sort of neither. Specifically, it's CGI boxes who are cats integrated into real-world settings, sometimes with real cats, and sometimes with real boxes. Either way, it's an amusing short with some neat visual gags. It also has Horie Yui and Kugimiya Rie voicing boxes who are cats. Or are they cats who are boxes? I'm not really sure. Romi Park is in this too, so it's basically Fullmetal Alchemist except with boxes who are cats. And because Sanpei Yuko and Takeuchi Junko are also in it, it's also sort of Yes! Pretty Cure 5 as well.

Technically, Nyanbo! is also an idol anime.

In either case, it's totally worth your time if you care at all about photography, cats, or boxes. Because of the characters' scale, nearly every shot involves high-resolution close-ups of neat-looking things and places. It's not quite macro photography, but the show looks great. It's definitely worth watching the 1080 version over the lower-resolution choices. The cats who are boxes who are cats also yammer back and forth and have amusing little adventures. Do you need any more from a five-minute short?

And she never smiled again.

I think we were all expecting Mahou Shoujo Ikusei Keikaku to be this season's magikal girl bloodbath. Indeed, its opening scene features a girl surrounded by bloodied corpses. However, with Mahou Shoujo Ikusei Keikaku taking its sweet time getting to the fireworks factory, ViVid Strike! has effectively beaten it to the, uh, punch.