nobahn's Anime

English Dub
1. "The Red Queen Escapes" (10/11)
2. "Dreams of Alice" (10/11) Ends on a cliffhanger.
3. "Cards" (11/11) An expression of the banality of evil.
4. "Something Not Human" (11/11)
   • Sanae takes Grandpa to task for denying her agency.
   • And so, the battle begins in earnest.

https://bleach.fandom.com/wiki/Episodes

Cour Arrancar: Decisive Battle of Karakura arc (episodes 213-229)
215. What was the animation budget? They seem to have taken a number of shortcuts....
216. • There's a lotta talking going on in these "battles"..... (Perhaps an animation budget issue?)
     • Humor in a battle scene? Is this really canon?
     • The humor in the "Shinigami Work Diary" is better than what was in the actual episode itself! Sheesh!
     • I really like the OP & ED, though!
217. • Hard to believe that this is really canon. Has the manga really declined so badly at this point?
     • Right now it's hard for me to care about any of the characters above Karakura Town.
     • It's a sad state of affairs when "The ShinigamI Work Diary" is more entertaining than the episode itself! Right now I'm rating this cour at 6/11 ─ and I think I'm being generous.

Plot Summary:
Kokonotsu “Coconuts” Shikada dreams of becoming a famous manga artist. The only problem—he’s terrible. His real talent is selling the complex and delicious snacks in his father’s “dagashi” shop. He never thought much about the family business until the trendy, eccentric Hotaru showed up. As a lover of “dagashi,” she can’t let his talent go to waste and decides she won’t stop ‘til she’s sold him on sweets.

1. Setup; surprisingly humorous.
2. Moderately humorous.

1. Fan service.
2. "Loser" presents a mystery from the past.

1. 10/11
2. 10/11
3. 10/11
4. 10/11
5. 11/11 "Orwell" lives up or, rather, down to her name.....
6. 11/11 So [future] Akari is living for the day when Menou can and will kill her..... That's pretty twisted!

https://fushigiyuugi.fandom.com/wiki/Fushigi_Yuugi_Wiki

1. Obviously, a rather limited animation budget.....
2. The basic setup is set out.
3. So Tamahome seems to be creating the nucleus of a harem.....
4. Love triangles.
5. Taiitsukun tests the two love triangles.
6. "Even if I Die": Taiitsukun creates an evil version of Miaka.
7. • I'm surprised by just how much I'm enjoying the humor in this episode!
   • Miaka and Yui exchange places.
8. "Brief Parting"
   • The animation budget seems to have taken a hit.....
   • So how does Miaka break into the National Library?! (CON)
   • I'm sorry, but I like my plots to maintain an internal logic; how are things "too calm" when military forces are on the border?! (CON)
9. "Enemies Unseen"
   So exactly how do arrows kill an assassin inside a house?! (CON)

Once again, anime surprises me by taking seemingly boring subject matter and turning [it] into something wonderful. Let’s discuss The Great Passage.
―I Watched an Anime

Remember when we [didn’t] have any electronic gadgets like mobile phones, computers etc. We used to ask someone or just go through our dictionary whenever we wanted to find a meaning of that word. I still remember how I used to turn the pages of my dictionary when I was a kid. It was really fun to know the meanings of the words which I doesn’t know. Have you ever wondered how much time does it take to create a dictionary?

The Great Passage anime shows us all about that.
―Anjani

The dictionary: a tool that many of us take for granted. It’s easy to think of it as something we can look up on our phones, but we forget about the people who spend years of their lives making it. Today’s video [2021, Jan. Sixth] is about those workers and how they juggle their work and their personal lives:Fune wo Amu, a.k.a. The Great Passage.

It came out back in 2016, but I haven’t heard of a lot of people who talked about it then or even now. Whether it’s the fact that it’s an Amazon Prime show so it got lost in the sea of other crap, or some viewers were put off by the subject and how it approached the story, The Great Passage got quickly overlooked. It’s a real shame, because while it may not be a perfect series, I greatly enjoyed it, especially on my recent re-watch.
―Red Panda Reels

"Hello, Yamamoto-san? I have an idea for next year’s NoitaminA block.”
“Oh? Let’s hear it.”
“Well – it’s based on a book. And it’s already been an award-winning movie.”
“Wow – sounds great. What’s it about?”
“It’s a thriller about compiling a dictionary. It’s- Hello? Are you still there?”
[...]
Clearly, this is not the show for everybody – it’s reflective and low-key, as niche an anime as NoitaminA has done in a long time. But for someone who loves language and all its subtleties, The Great Passage is a real treat – especially knowing that one cour should be enough to give the novel a complete adaptation.
[...]
The Great Passage (yes, I like the English title so much I’m using it in the post headings) has an awful lot going for it to appeal to fans of esoterica like me.
―Lost in Anime (LiA)

Here is another review.

And another.

Here is the trailer for the live-action film.

Characters (left to right)
• Tomosuke Matsumoto
• Kōhei Araki
• Kaguya Hayashi
• Mitsuya Majime
• Masashi Nishioka
• Kaoru Sasaki
• Midori Kishibe

This telephone really takes me back.....

• 
  2019, September 26th | I Watched an Anime (personal website)

• Anatomy of the Anime Office Worker | The Great Passage (Fune Wo Amu) Anime Review| Red Panda Reels (YouTube)

• 2017, April 13th | Allison M. Ziebruh (personal website)

• Fune no Amu (The Great Passage) l Anime Short Review | Ikerot (YouTube)

• Assembled as carefully as words in a poem | Ink (Otaku USA Magazine)

• Fune wo Amu (The Great Passage) - Sent's Anime Review | Sent ~ Anime Stuff (YouTube)

• The Great Passage : Such an underrated anime. | thelostvoice027 (My Utopia blog)

• Anime Review | The Great Passage | JcGreen (YouTube)

• it's a l0ve letter but she d0esn't understand the letter | AM Anime Clips (YouTube)

• The Great Passage (Fune wo Amu): Connection and Language | OLV (YouTube)

• Series discussion that occurred as it was being released on a weekly basis.

• Gabriella Elkins

  LiA (archived reviews of The Great Passage)
  N.B.: Images in the LiA section have their own hyperlinks.

  1. 
     First Impressions
     "I know one thing: if Manglobe still existed, they’d never let a potential commercial tank this big slip through their fingers.
     [...]
     "Fune wo Amu was one of the two or three shows I was most interested in, given the subject matter and pedigree of the source material. And I’m happy to say it didn’t disappoint, even as I wonder who the target audience is going to be."

     
     

  2. 
     All this and Sakamoto Maaya too?
     "I love Fune wo Amu, but I almost feel like it should be in a display case in a museum somewhere with people wandering by occasionally to read the plaque and stare at it rather than be on TV."

     
     

  3. 
     There’s more to life than dictionaries, a man has certain desires, and [Mitsuya] Majime is certainly no exception.
     "It may well be that The Great Passage also refers to the journey of a child to adulthood for [Mitsuya] Majime – he’s certainly still a child in terms of social skills (he barely gets a word out in Kaguya’s presence)."

     
     

  4. Remi Miyoshi/Nishioki
     This week is a dream I still haven’t woken up from. Let’s hope next week isn’t a living nightmare.
     "I guess after 108 years of waiting, Cub fans can be forgiven for being a little slow in letting go of the absurd fantasy life has become and embracing reality again. [The Cubs won the 2016 World Series against Cleveland.] In its way I think today was actually the day I most acutely felt the pain of not being in Chicago for all this. For all the times (thousands, to be sure) I fantasized since childhood about how that final inning would go, I probably fantasized every bit as much about how the celebration would go. About the parade, and the crowds, and Grant Park, and the music and the tears. Unless you were in Chicago employers weren’t going to be keen on skipping out on work (with five million in attendance, I can’t think many offices were staffed apart from on the South Side), so I had to content myself with catching it all on WGN via DVR. And even that left me an emotional wreck."

     
     

  5. Kaoru Sasaki
     As America seems to be readying to tear itself asunder and my business trip continues, anime just keeps rolling along like Old Man River. [Donald Trump lost the popular vote; but he won the Electoral College.]
     "I’m still not quite sure how to process it, to be honest – on some level I feel guilty giving it my attention, but on the other hand there’s something to be said for a welcome distraction when events are as bleak and scary as they are. I find myself able to slip into the moment for 22 minutes all right (especially for something inherently healing like Natsume Yuujinchou) but the concentration level required for writing about anime is a much tougher ask. I’ll do my best."

     
     

  6. 
     Take Ooya (Mitsuya Majime's landlord and Kaguya Hayashi's grandmother)
     I believe The Great Passage is a series that asks a lot of questions about and of the audience.
     "Ultimately, The Great Passage more than anything else seems to be about passion.
     [...]
     "'Passion', of course, can manifest itself in many ways, and Majime’s feelings for Kaguya are another expression of it. Nishioka seems to be trying to fill his emptiness with passionless romance, [...].
     [...]
     "The tragic thing for Nishioka is that just that when he’s become passionate about The Great Passage, he’s being forced to leave the project – and to salt the wound, this is as a result of his newfound conviction having saved it.
     [...]
     "There’s another expression of passion in this episode – the Genkai (Sea of Words), the first modern Japanese dictionary. It was compiled as a one-man crusade by the Meiji scholar Ootsuki Fumihiko, who devoted his life to its publication (and that of the follow-up Daigenkai, completed by adoring proteges and published a few years after Ootsuki’s death) – and if that’s not passion, I don’t know what is."

     
     

  7. 
     When I say this episode represented a return to form of sorts, take [it] in the context that even the form it was in was pretty damn good. It’s just that eps like this one are why I fell in love with Fune wo Amu.
     "I think with Nishioka it comes down to a matter of perspective as the key [...]. Majime is interesting but he’s a true believer, a natural when it comes to the art of the dictionary. Nishioka is someone more of us can relate to, someone who’s struggling to find his place in life. Nishioka’s skills are practical and mundane. His romances aren’t epic love letters delivered to fairy tale princesses in the moonlight – they’re clandestine relationships with co-workers where affection is expressed by a wry insult and a quiet, exhausted cuddle after the lights go out. Which one of those is the more relevant to most of our lives?"

  8. 
     
     Time skips in anime are always a nervous subject, and with good reason.
     "I can think of may shows that jumped the shark pretty hard as a result, but with The Great Passage I think it stands as pretty likely that things will be different. [...] So normal anime disclaimers probably don’t apply here, since Fune wo Amu is anything but a normal anime.
     [...]
     "Yet there’s a certain hopefulness to it too, a sense of the plucky optimism of this underdog undertaking. We see it through the eyes of Kishibe Midori (Hikasa Youko, 'Bungaku Shoujo' herself), the new employee the publisher has finally seen fit to throw at the department. She’s a refugee from one of the company’s fashion magazines, 'Northern Black', where she apparently clashed repeatedly with her co-workers and editor over her obsession with 'the importance of words'. If you think that sounds like a good fit, you’re definitely right."

  9. 
     [T]his is a story about passion – their passion – and when you understand it as such, you realize that it’s quite universal after all. And that the story itself has a lot more in common with traditional anime than it appears to.
     [...]
     "There’s a sort of valedictory quality to Fune wo Amu. Not to be too dramatic about it, but it’s hard to look at the 2017 anime schedule and not be struck that much more by just what an odd series this is – that, and the idea that it could be the last of its kind, both for NoitaminA and anime generally. Probably not – but shows like it are becoming rarer and rarer, and the medium seems to re-emerge from these creative dark ages a little bit less vibrant and diverse each time. One of these times it’s probably never going to come back."

  10. 
      Who’d have thought two of the shows I’d be most vested in this season [2016, Fall]* would be about dictionary writing and figure skating**? God bless writers (and producers) who take chances.
      "The thing is, if Fune wo Amu is indeed the last hurrah of the old, 'art for art’s sake' NoitaminA, at least they picked a perversely uncommercial lead balloon to go out on. If you’d told me you could make a genuinely exciting series about compiling a dictionary, I’d have said you were crazy. I’m vastly more geeky and esoteric than 90% of the population, I’d bet, and I find dictionaries pretty boring. For most people (even those that love books) dictionaries are things we take for granted almost as much as air. Yeah we need them sometimes (even if they’re now mostly online) but why would we ever want to think about them?"

  11. 
      I suppose it’s only natural that the finale of The Great Passage has left me in a tremendously reflective mood, because it’s one of the more reflective series you’ll ever see.
      "That’s fitting, too, because one of the many themes of Fune wo Amu is that truly important things are timeless – they outlive us, but through the work of our lives we transcend our ephemeral existence and live on in those who follow us.

Two questions posed to Red Panda Reels concerning the OP

1. Q. At the fifty-four second mark (https://youtu.be/jVAjAlW97xw?t=53) Majime hits a sentence and is knocked back. What does that sentence say?
   A. [This] first [question] took some detective work - the kanji is 志独歩, which is an unusual combination. 志 means “intention” while 独歩 means to walk alone. I’m not entirely sure if it’s as simple as “the intention of walking alone” because as I said, it’s an unusual combination of kanji. When I googled it in Japanese, I found that it’s the title of a magazine article the (animation) director of The Great Passage wrote (his name is Kuroyanagi Toshimasa). I can’t find the article itself online, so I can’t tell you more than that. Somebody’s review of said article though mentions it being about the director’s driving force when making anime and wanting to make himself understood - that does sound like something Majime m “ran into” in his life!
2. Q. At the fifty-seven second mark ( https://youtu.be/jVAjAlW97xw?t=57 ) Majime seizes a kanji and then hands it off to Kaguya. What is the meaning of that kanji/word?
   A. [This] second one is fairly simple. The kanji he clutches is 灯 which means “light”. The radicals are “fire on a street”, so it also means lamp. It’s usually used in Japanese quite literally (as “a source of light”) but perhaps in the OP it could signify reaching a conclusion - seeing the light (at the end of the tunnel of getting himself understood).

Episode List:
1. "Vastness"
   The OP had me in its thrall within the 1st 90 seconds that I heard it! And the ED ain't ½ bad, either!
2. "Encounter"
   The OST is also enchanting!
3. "Love"
4. "Steady Progress"
   Better lyrics given within episode itself.
5. "Waver"
   Mitsuya (Majimi) submits a love letter to Kaguya.

I will say, however, that there are meaningful deaths.....

1. Dragon's Teeth. Ends on notes of mystery.

EDIT ENTRY
↕
Komi-san wa, Komyushō Desu., "Komi Has a Communication Disorder"
Notice the framing in the above image; also, please note that everyone but Komi has their mouth open while Komi is holding forth both a notebook and a pencil.


Komi Shōko


Tadano Hitohito


Osana Najimi

"It sounds like a romance anime. It also looks like a romance anime. The way the score swells when Komi and Tadano communicate via blackboard enforce that: “Yep, this is a romance”.
"And then the series continues. More characters enter the story. And it dawns on you.
"It is a comedy.
[...]
"What I want to say is: I identify with Komi [...]."
―Bright Eyed and Bushy Tailed blog

Links from Anime World Senpai

• Komi san gets a Haircut

• Komi san Orders COFFEE

• Komi san Making Plans On The Phone

• Komi san Shopping for Clothes

• Review of 1st episode by John Serba

• TL notes by Netflix

• ANN Aftershow

• Episode Reviews by MrAJCosplay/Cartoon Cipher

• This Week in Anime by Jean-Karlo Lemus & Monique Thomas (Nov 30th 2021)
https://epicstream.com/article/how-does-komi-cant-communicate-tackle-social-anxiety
https://epicstream.com/article/where-did-komi-get-her-communication-issues-in-komi-cant-communicate
https://epicstream.com/article/how-did-komi-cant-communicate-showcase-toxic-friends
https://epicstream.com/article/komi-cant-communicate-season-1-ending-explained

"Why Komi is NOT Popular in Japan (Komi Can't Communicate)" | That Japanese Man Yuta (YouTube)

1. Mission #1
   "It's just, I wish I could speak."
   The animation is different; among other things it seems to allude to the manga's drawings.
2. Mission #2
   "It's just a childhood friend."
   Tadano Hitohito introduces Osana Najimi, who is transgendered and identifies as a girl, to Komi Shouko.
   Mission #3
   "I'm not a killer."
   Najimi decides to become Komi's 2nd friend.
   Mission #4
   "It's just my first errand."
   Najimi sends Komi to a coffee shop as an exercise; but Komi is unable to speak at all to the barista.
3. Mission #5
   "It's just stage fright."
   Mission #6
   "It's just a cell phone."
   Mission #7
   "It's just a student election."
   Mission #8
   "It's just an accidental call."
   Mission #9
   "It's just a game."
4. Mission #10
   "It's just a physical."
   Mission #11
   "It's just a crush."
5. Mission #13
   "It's just a fitness test."
   Mission #14
   "It's just veggies. Garlic. Lots of lard. Soy sauce."
   Mission #15
   "It's just a blood pact."
6. Mission #16
   "It's just a joke."
   Mission #17
   "It's just shopping."
   Mission #18
   "It's just the hair salon."
   Mission #19
   "It's just an unsettling feeling."
   Mission #20
   "It's just a study group."
   Mission #21
   "It's just summer break."
7. #22
   "It's just the pool."
   #23
   "It's just shaved ice."
   #24
   "It's just a library."
   #25
   "It's just a park."
8. #26
   "It's just Obon."
   #27
   "It's just a festival."
   #28
   "It's just the end of summer."
9. #29
   "I'm just a country girl."
   #30
   "It's just a video game."
   #31
   "It's just a part-time job."
   #32
   "It's just... something on your face."
10. #33
    "It's just sports day."
    #34
    "It's just emotional pangs."
    #35
    "It's just photo stickers."
11. #36
    "It's just a performance for the culture festival."
    #37
    "It's just festival preparations."
    #38
    "It's just flyers distribution."
    #39
    "It's just the culture festival eve."
    #40
    "It's just maids."
    
12. #41
    "It's just the culture festival."
    #42
    "The After-Party"
    #43
    "After-Party"

• The humor just isn't my cup of tea.....
  
• I bumped the rating up one notch to 7/11 because I like the OP.
• See Slice-of-life

• 2:45 before title card
• 5:00 | This has the makings of an art-house film.
• 15:00 | This art-house aesthetic does not appeal to me.

• 35:00 is the boy imagining all of this?
• sibling rivalry: gotta love it.....
• The character designs strongly resemble The Girl Who Leapt Through Time and Summer Wars
• It's charming, there's no denying that; but how much of that was his imagination and how much was real?
• It's true that Mirai (from the future) is a part of the plot, but she's only one part of the plot ─ the title is somewhat misleading.

[...] However, I think that you've done the film a bit of a disservice by entirely ignoring its main character — the house itself.

For all four-year-olds, the physical space they inhabit is the shape and boundary of their universe, defining their experience of their family and their family's world. Hosoda had the house in the film designed by an architect from scratch in order to make it the fruit of Kun's father's labors; it's important to note that "home" is the contribution Dad made to Kun's upbringing, although he had to sacrifice his time with his son to make it.

Having been constructed by the generation before Kun's, the house becomes the temporal nexus connecting him to the generations of the future and the past. The house stands for the family itself, the eternal story in which each individual life is its own chapter—a chapter that tells its own standalone tale that is nevertheless entirely incomprehensible without the larger context of the family story it serializes. The climactic fall through the family's full history, with all of its horrors and joys and amazing connections, its acknowledgement of the devastating power of death and the even more incredible life-force of the ongoing family that can overcome it, brings me to tears every time I watch it. (My own grandfather died when my father was a teenager, and I have often felt the mysterious, intimate connection to a man I've never met who is nevertheless present in all of my father's actions, and grieved for the loss of someone I never knew; that aspect of family is the real heart of Mirai's action.)

So yeah, having written all that up, I guess that for all I agree with this article's take on the failures and foibles of Kun and his parents, I really disagree with its conclusion about the film's worthiness. Viewed as being "about" family history from the perspective of a very small child, I think it's a unique and positively mira(i)culous work.

GR "Anime" Review: RWBY|Tristan "Arkada" Gallant ("Glass Reflection")
Vol.#1
1. ep.#1: graphics/animation are a bit crude; OST is decent, however.
2. ep.#2: Ruby Rose tries to get her bearing without her sister for guidance.
3. ep.#3: pretty snappy dialogue..... Also, mildly amusing.
4. ep.#4: more snappy dialogue..... and more mildly amusing humor.
5. ep.#5: I like Blake Belladona's attitude!
6. ep.#6: Forgot just how f'ugly the graphics/animation are.....
   If I'm not mistaken, then they saved their animation budget for the action scenes.....
7. So the pairs are getting their collective asses kicked on a largely individual basis.....
8. Yeah, they definitely rationed the animation budget to give the action scenes the most oomph.
   Oh, and the OST definitely needs to be checked out!
9. 1st day of class..... (snoozefest)
10. The team adjusts to Ruby as leader.
11. Jacques Schnee & Co. are being bullies.
12. Blackmail.
13. More of the same.....
14. Jaune Arc finally lets go of his pride. (Ironically enough, after he comes into his own.)
15. Blake Belladonna character development. And the OST ain't half bad, either.....
16. This thriller is to be continued.....

17. (1)Food fight?! Maybe the director was trying to impress with the animation?
    At least there was some plot progression.....
18. (2)There seems to be a pattern here: Some plot progression; a lot of filler; and then a little more plot progression.
19. (3)"I'm not a girl."
20. (4)"The girls will be alright, right?"
    "Probably."
21. (5)"Don't worry, Mercury. We have a fun weekend ahead of us."
22. (6)"Wouldn't miss it for the world."
23. (7)"So what now?"
    "Enjoy the rest of the night; it is, after all, a party."
24. (8)"Why, hello girls! Who's ready to fight for their lives?"
25. (9)"Don't worry; things will be better tomorrow."
26. (10)"If Ruby is down there, we must find her."
    The plot actually seems to be moving at a faster pace!
27. (11)panicked screams
28. (12)"Do you think that White Fang will listen to us?"
    "No, but they'll listen to me."

• Graveside conversation -- really emotional for me.
• A lotta action sequences -- not so much in the way of plot.....

1. If you can accept the limited animation, then all bibliophiles should like this series.

8. • Baby hijinks.
   • Infants cannot maneuver like that [Con]
   • To be continued.....

• I am so clueless; but it is because of that cluelessness that I will not rate this.....
• Apparently, it was animated in Japan.....

8. I've forgotten just how entertaining Marisa can be!

ep.#6 "Searching for a Reason" | The internal monologue is heart breaking; also, I've come to like the ED song..... The end of the episode is inspiring. [PRO]
The different EDs with the same song that reference plot elements to each episode are simply sublime.
ep.#9 The animation is exceptional. [PRO]

Yoshino Takatsuki

Chizuru Sarashina

Saori "Saorin" Chiba

Kanako Sasa

Makoto Ariga

ep.#2| Middle school sure can be a hostile environment.
ep.#3|"Juliet X Romeo" Shuuichi and Yushino work together on a genderbender play for the school cultural.
ep.#4|"I Give you my Name. ~The sound of your name."

1. Animation is minimal. Interesting, to say the least.

5. That street-rapping scene is funny!
6. Gotta admit that that rapping contest was impressive. Very impressive!
7. The music is just too cool, man!

The central plot premises are not explained.
English dub

Bokurano: Latest Manga Adaptation Train Wreck

• Yeah, it sorta titillates, but the scat is a real turn-off.
• Yeah, there are scenes that are a turn-on for me, but there are also plenty of scenes that are a turn-off for me.....

• As a young child, I saw some episodes as Battle of the Planets.....
  
• I don't care if this is a stroll down memory lane -- at 105 ep.s, I'm not watching it!

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

When "Syfy" showed the series again, I tried to watch it, I really did.....but that opener, combined with that first 10 minutes was simply too much..... This dreck is CLEARLY aimed at younger children (tweens, if I'm not mistaken).

==============================================================================================

I've seen most of it, so I've changed my rating of it. At least they're willing to kill off a few characters. It does get better after a while, but this is far from a favorite of mine.

2. The expositions wherein the characters explain what's going on (e.g., when Kagome trips over a rock, Shippo will then exclaim, "Kagome tripped over a rock!"

Not just One Piece, but all long shonen series in general.

Shonen series in general tend to be highly expository because

a: they are meant for kids
b: they are meant to be watched casually, while kids are eating a meal or doing something with the TV on. So when something happens onscreen, they overexplain it so that the programs can be followed even if the audience is not always looking at the TV while it is on. And no--I am not making this up, I think one of the producers for the Inu-Yasha anime even said this in an interview.

If these things begin to bother you, chances are you're ready to start looking for anime that are meant for people older than 13 years old.

1. So apparently Nina is a dragon? Gonna have to watch more.....
2. So the Rag Demon is saved by the Holy Child.....
3. The Rag Demon is lured out!

There doesn't seem to be an English dub.....
1. OST seems decent.....
   Is this a slice-of-life? Can't tell.....
   So it's definitely "Country girl comes to the big city." Out in the sticks, they have rotary telephones.....
   
2. So Special Week wins her debut race.....
   
   I'm still trying to figure out what this series is about.....
3. So far, this appears to be about cute horse-girls running in cute outfits.....
   What's up with this shot?
   
   The more that I think about that image, the more I'm reminded of just how sexist Japanese culture is!
4. 
   Trainer sets up a mock race for Special Week with Taiki Shuttle.....
   
5. First off, before I get into the synopsis (such as it, and what there is of it) I would like to ask this: What's up with the Rubik's Cube?
   
   With that outta the way, let's get on to the race! How does it finish?
   
   That's right; a photo finish!
   Rivals, yet friends as well.....
   
6. First off: If you're gong to offer fanservice, then at least try to offer it in support of the plot.
   
   Second thing: This Rubik's Cube shows up three different times! What's up with that?!
   
   They sure weren't skimping on the animation budget.....
   
   
   • unexpected humor at 15:45
     
   • So this episode was pretty much slice-of-life, except for a race and Silence Suzuka's decision to race abroad.
7. This body shaming is getting real old, real quick!!!
   No way am I rating this any higher than 9/11 ("Very Good").
   
   The ED for ep.#7 is nice, but I'm still pissed off about the body shaming. Normally, my baseline for determining a rating is at 9/11, but with this body-shaming drivel I think that the baseline could well be 6/11 or even 3/11! This shit is outrageous!!!

8. • "Special Week" vs. "Grass Wonder". "Grass Wonder"'s feelings are not reciprocated.

Juxtaposing mecha with the middle ages is just absurd -- it's a mashup of scifi and fantasy.

The only positive thing, aside from its monstrous nostalgia value, that one can say about Voltron is that it periodically achieves a kitsch value akin to that of the Flash Gordon serials of yesteryear; only without the critical temporal distance that would render its chasmic shortcomings as quaint quirks. There is nothing quaint or even remotely appealing about Voltron. Upon completing this set, my one reaction was an overwhelming desire to throttle the show and demand that it return the hours of my life that it had stolen from me.