I thought I’d try something new this season since I’m attempting to keep on top of so many series. While I don’t have the time nor the energy to do a weekly recap for all of the anime I’m watching, I thought it might be fun to post periodically about all the specific scenes, story beats, or moments that bring me joy while I’m going through my watch list. In the future, I might not limit it to currently-airing anime, either; lately I’ve even managed to watch a few things lately from previous seasons, or re-watched anime just for fun (I know, right?).
This post will obviously contain spoilers: this time we’ve got spoilers for episode 4 of Laid-Back Camp Season 2, Heaven’s Design Team, Horimiya, SK8 The Infinity, and Bottom-Tier Character Tomozaki. It’s my aim to avoid some of the longer-running, plot-heavy series like The Promised Neverland and Attack on Titan in these posts, mainly because spoilers are more touchy and it gets more difficult to talk about any current revelations without going back and discussing earlier points at length. This could definitely change in the future depending on what happens, though.
Laid-Back Camp Season 2 Episode 4 – Nadeshiko (finally!) earns her prize.
Those who have watched Laid-Back Camp from the beginning will probably remember the moment last season where Nadeshiko and friends went to a camping supply store, and she fell madly in love with a certain retro-style camping lantern. The the first few episodes of this season see her taking on a temp job delivering New Year’s cards, and rushing back to the store multiple times to ogle the lamp (much to the amusement of the staff members). After she has the money in hand, the time has come; she buys the lovely red and green “Goalman” (lol) brand, along with something else…
One reason that I enjoy this series is that the characters are generally very kind to one-another. Recently I’ve seen series similar to this described as “cute anime girl zoo anime,” the implication being that we, the audience, on some level enjoy “cute girls doing cute things” slice-of-life series at least partly for the unthreatening manner in which we become voyeurs into the unrealistically palatable lives of these girls, who’ve been distilled down to a few pleasant archetypes for our amusement. Speaking as someone whose consumption of media is always flavored in part by my experience as a woman, I can see where that argument comes from. There are a lot of other anime series I’d more readily accuse of being this way, but perhaps that’s partly because I don’t like them in the way that I love this one. That said, I think considering some of the other anime that are airing right now, the fact that this series leans so hard into its iyashi-kei genre and features characters who are genuinely endearing, who accept each-other’s differences, who cherish the beauty of the world around them and express kindness readily, feels like balm to my soul, and I don’t really care too much about being a zoo patron.
Which is all to say that the fact that Nadeshiko spent a portion of her (meager, in my opinion) ¥10,000 salary to buy her older sister a nice hand-warmer really made me feel good!
It’s worth mentioning here that the prior episode to this one hits a bit of a sour note when the characters discuss Nadeshiko’s previously heavier weight (she loves to eat and did back in middle school as well, but eventually was shamed into exercising to “work it off”). Bicycling for fun and for your health is all well-and-good, but being shamed or devalued for your weight is wrong and gross.
Heaven’s Design Team – Horses continue to be difficult.
In this episode, the members of the design team are all struggling at once with some truly weird requests from God. Venus in particular is asked to “make horses fly somehow,” which as we know from previous episodes is one of those things that, well, creates its own barriers to success. Saturn is dejected that he wasn’t given the assignment since, well, horses are kind of his thing. Venus initially whips off a design that’s especially… stronk. With reduced myostatin, muscle growth is less inhibited, resulting in something kind of terrifying.
Venus eventually comes up with a Horseshoe Bat, which is interestingly enough a creature that’s genetically closely related to horses (who knew? Evolution and species classification is so interesting). This segment of the episode not only stuck out to me for its creative problem-solving (a hallmark of the series so far, to be sure), but also for its *ahem* bathroom humor. I may have the sense of humor of a 12-year-old, but rocket poops are just funny to me and I’m not going to apologize for it.
It seems that with this episode the translation has started using the names as they appear in the manga, which I gather has resulted in some confusion among anime watchers. There are also some folks irate about “localization,” which is an argument I honestly have less than zero minutes in my week to entertain. I just wanted to mention that it’s a thing, so be aware.
Bottom-Tier Character Tomozaki – Tomozaki-kun stands up to a bully.
I continue to be pleasantly surprised by how this series has unfolded, and how Tomozaki’s growth has manifested. He’s begun to show some self-awareness about his own actions, and has even questioned some of Hinami’s attitudes and advice as feeling manipulative in social situations. In this episode, Nakamura challenges Tomozaki to a TackFam rematch. This is after Tomozaki has spent time with Nakamura’s girlfriend, Izumi, teaching her some TackFam strats so that she can feel more confident playing with Nakamura. Naturally, Tomozaki continues to dominate during the rematch, but Nakamura, for his part, keeps trying and even gets an offensive move in here and there. Things become uncomfortable when Erika and her two hangers-on begin to berate the entire reason for the gathering, deriding Nakamura and Tomozaki for spending so much time on an activity that seems so useless (to her).
While I think this situation doesn’t do much to dispel the “us versus them” mentality that a lot of otaku seem to harbor (honestly? When so-called “normies” are all-in on things like the MCU, or video games, or heck, even show some curiosity about anime, I find it a little bit disingenuous to perpetuate this myth of otaku as an oppressed minority; of course, things might be more extreme in Japan than they are in my neck of the woods), I really appreciated the core message; with very few exceptions, working hard and bettering yourself is an honest and commendable pursuit, and shouldn’t be ridiculed. I get the feeling that perhaps Erika was doing a bit of projecting, but we don’t know a whole lot about her right now. I think it speaks to Tomozaki’s development that he feels compelled to stick up for others, if not himself just yet. Even though his speech is, as others have described it, a bit “cringe,” I think his heart is in the right place. I really just appreciate when characters stick up for one-another in a just way.
SK8 The Infinity – Sure, physics work that way!
In episode 4 of SK8 The Infinity (or just SKꚙ if you’re nasty) we finally get a glimpse of the mysterious blue-haired DIO… I mean Adam, who unsurprisingly turns out to be one of the originators of the “S” underground skating competition. As expected, he’s an extremely flamboyant dude with the reputation for being dangerous on the race track. Apparently he’s got some special skills that are known for putting competitors in the hospital. And of course now that he’s shown his face again and has shown an interest in Langa, Reki challenges him to a race. Perhaps not the most intelligent move.
My husband is just not interested in this anime at all (really, I’ve tried multiple times at this point) so I’m stuck freaking out about it on Twitter and here on the blog. This episode really managed to encapsulate what appeals to me about it, though. The same ridiculousness that keeps some folks from wanting to invest their time in it is what drives me to want to see more, and it should surprise no one that the climactic moments of the race between Adam and Reki just had me completely enthralled. The image above, where Adam “dances” with Reki in a gravity-defying halfpipe stunt, is just *chef’s kiss.* This is the kind of silliness and excitement that reminds me of how much I really love anime.
One criticism I had of earlier episodes that women were sparsely represented, and when they did show up it seemed to be that they were only there to hang off of the arms of men. While there aren’t really any active women characters in this series at this point, I’m happy to say that I’ve seen many more women in the background who look like they’re skaters and race participants, which is nice.
Horimiya – An expected, unexpected confession.
Horimiya is one of the very few high school romance series that has interested me in a long time. I tend to find it irritating when anime characters beat around the bush, communicating poorly (or not at all in some cases) and deliberately not recognizing their own feelings, but as I examine that opinion I think it probably has something to do with my own life and experiences than with the stories themselves. I’ve been through a divorce, and when I started dating my current husband I knew pretty early on that I wanted to be in it with him for good. I think after a while you begin to understand yourself in a way that makes these feelings more clear, and there’s not as much of a reason to mess around and try to deny what’s happening.
But these kids are in high school, and for various reasons have even less romantic experience than some of their peers, so their tender forays into accepting their feelings for one-another make sense. Because I like them so much, I can forgive there being a bit of a meandering path. Which is why Miyamura’s “wait… what just happened?!” confession while Hori was sick in bed surprised and pleased me so much. In a move that seemed almost nonchalant, Miyamura slipped it into a normal goodbye. This series is subtle enough that it seemed rather to emphasize just how Miyamura doesn’t get flustered over the things one normally would. It was sweet and nearly had me in a puddle on the floor.
What have been your favorite anime moments lately? Let me know in the comments!