Idle Master

  I get it. Age gap romances can be a little weird huh? You have an older male who is supposedly trying to manipulate a naive young girl to fall into a unhealthy relationship with you; In fact, it is problematic IRL and will probably create some raised eyebrows at least and raise the red flags of the cops at worse. That is why it is even more amusing to me to see this very concept displayed in its black-and-white with this season, with not only Koikimo airing beside Higehiro, but literally on the same day.  Both series have a working adult man becoming closer to a high school girl. Both series have romantic undertones guiding their relationship. And both series hints or highlights the problematic sexual nature of such a relationship. However, the discussion for both series is, but polarizing. In fact, Higehiro is praised to be the better and less creepy Koikimo. As while Koikimo is played as a straight romance, with hints of the girl slowly falling for the advances of our male...

Vivy is the most high impact anime I am watching this season. But while much of it can be attributed to its fast-paced sci-fi plot, I feel much more inclined to breakdown one of the more subtle reasons that made this anime so thrilling -- Its structural composition. Now I am a sucker for structure. Shit like introduction, rising action, climax and then ending makes me a happy man and when writers go out their way to subvert conventional structures in their stories, that is when my brain juices really start pumping. Vivy does this perfectly with their sharpest technique -- The art of the hard-cuts. Sound cuts This scene uses two sound cuts in two polar structures. The first is the use of the explosion sound cut to the music and the second is the use of music sound cut to the explosion; The first explosion provides a hard cut into the sound track, emphasizing the impact of the dreadful melody.  The latter sound cut does the opposite. Instead of using the punchy sound effect to place ...