Team GLORIO USA discusses changes to the podcast, the Funimation/Crunchyroll divorce, and the latest episodes of Rascal Does Not Dream of Bunny Girl, Zombie Land Saga, Boarding School Juliet, Double Decker, and SSSS.Gridman.
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Opening Song: “Emotional literacy” by BRADIO
Closing Song: “OTONA HIT PARADE” by BRADIO
Show Notes
0:45 Changes to the podcast format
Read the full changes post
3:43 Crunchyroll: Friendship ended with Funimation, now HIDIVE is my best friend
13:23 Tsurune finally aired
I couldn’t find the exact C3-bu clip we were talking about (it was from episode 4) but this will do:
22:34 Rascal Does Not Dream of Bunny Girl Senpai
- Episode 3: “The World Without You”
- Episode 4: “There Is No Tomorrow for a Rascal”
Why has no one copied the Amagami formula?
32:57 Zombie Land Saga
- Episode 3: “DEAD OR LIVE SAGA”
- Episode 4: “Warming Dead SAGA”
How is this not a parody?
47:48 Boarding School Juliet
- Episode 3: “Romio and Princess Char”
- Episode 4: “Romio and Hasuki”
We did a better job explaining Yamada-kun and the Seven Witches in our Final Thoughts post.
1:00:29 Double Decker: Doug & Kirill
- Episode 5: “A. Kroyd Killer!”
1:10:09 SSSS.Gridman
- Episode 3: “Defeat”
- Episode 4: “Suspicion”
The Glorio Blog 
Maybe I just have low standards or different priorities, but I don’t think that the CG in Double Decker is anywhere close to being awful. It’s noticeable, sure, and doesn’t blend seamlessly, but I don’t think it’s all that much of an eyesore, mainly thanks to the default art and animation style. It could be so, so much worse.
Re: Tsurune, I find that the feeling of soullessness mentioned in the podcast is made even more obvious by just how opulent the production is. The background music is especially over-used to the point of being annoying, but the animation is also just kind of needlessly elaborate and pretty – considering that it’s not really doing anything, and doesn’t seem to have any concept or vision behind it, other than “make it elaborate and pretty.” Even the direction is just kind of basic and follows KyoAni templates. (I first noticed a show doing this with Your Lie in April whose animation was just distractingly and pointlessly gorgeous most of the time.)
Interesting point about Tsurune. I don’t think the extra level of animation is a bad thing but I do agree it’s not really adding value. Gridman is a good contrast this season, which uses every little bit of character movement to tell us more about them or help create a mood.
Man, remember to invite me next time you have a KyoAni-bashing session, because I get the feeling there’s a heck of a lot of double standard going on here. You guys do remember that before Tsurune and Violet Evergarden, KyoAni made Dragon Maid, which despite being not very good, was at least something very different from this thing we’re now describing as the studio’s “formula”? In fact, I’d say the two most recent shows (plus maybe Free!) are the only ones to which we can even apply said formula.
In any case, I will not deny that KyoAni’s more recent television stuff has been more hit-or-miss than the stuff they made during the turn of the decade. I think the shift occurred around the time they started to publish their own light novels. Most of the stuff based on the novels that won their award (Chu2koi, Violet, Tsurune, Beyond the Boundary, Myriad Colors) has been pretty crappy, whereas the stuff they’ve done based on other sources (Sound! Euphonium, A Silent Voice) has been stellar. Perhaps they should just go back to working on commission, rather than spending all of their resources on adapting the entries in what is essentially their own my-first-novel competition?
Also, I do think it needs to be mentioned every time KyoAni is discussed in any way that they are the only studio in anime to treat its workers properly. They’re so ahead of the competition in this regard it’s easy to hold them to higher standards, but they do need to pay the bills, perhaps even more so than other studios do.
I had thought about bringing up the fair treatment argument, but it’s inconsequential to how we should treat the quality of their work. Whether they’re a fantastic company from an ethical perspective should be a separate conversation from whether they’re a fantastic company from an artistic perspective.
You’re absolutely right in that it is inconsequential to how we treat the quality of their work, but it is relevant to the quantity of their work — it’s not because KyoAni can afford to actually pay its employees a fair wage that they don’t also have to “pay the bills” every once in a while.
Nevertheless, the anime community will be quick to declare their “downfall” as soon as they do this for, like, two shows in a row. Is there any other studio we’d hold to such impossible standards? Would we dismiss studios like SHAFT or A-1 Productions entirely, or say they’re “in trouble” whenever they produce two or three duds in a row?
I hate to bring up this comparison again, but it is really rather striking — between Kill la Kill and Gridman, Trigger — as far as their TV stuff is concerned — pretty much produced nothing but mediocre piffle, but did anyone ever hold that against them? Of course not, because we knew they had to secure funding for another passion project down the line. Why can’t we look at KyoAni the same way?
I mean, credit to them for eliciting such high expectations, but I can’t help but feel some of those are in bad faith.