Irregular Reconnaissance are a collection of unscheduled mini-reviews.
That’s right when the scouts come back after completing enough missions we compile the reports below.
What are mini-reviews? Well, they’re short, tend to be spoiler-free (or spoiler-lite) and get to the point in just three or so paragraphs. Importantly, mini-reviews end with a one-sentence summary of how well the show is doing and where you can find it.
Irregular Reconnaissance is made better by you. Have you made any anime discoveries lately? Good or bad. Let us know in the comments below.
In this article, we touch on the Tower of God, the new anime made from the mega-hit Korean Webtoon, Amazon Prime Video’s award-winning anime series and the weirdness and Nazi problem in JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure.
Tower of God
Episodes 2 to 3
Tower of God, Crunchyroll’s big Korean gamble, is going well.
I wrote a fuller review of Episode 1, and I’m sticking with my projections; each episode is a challenge of some description, a foreground distraction and upfront entertainment. Meanwhile, lurking in the background is hiding politics and character development.
Episodes 2 and 3 have shown us a bit more of Tower of God’s character, though. Despite some challenges being deadly, we’re not seeing the deaths. This is not a horror anime about characters trapped in a deadly situation.
It’s easy to see why it became popular. You want to see what happens next. The pacing is spot on.
Status: Good, so far.
Where: Crunchyroll
Vinland Saga
Episodes 1 to 13
I tracked down the Vinland Saga after it won Best Drama at the Anime Awards.
I like the anime. It is a good drama; we follow fairly historically accurate (except the near-superhuman combat feats) Vikings as they raid, war and then settle into England.
Our particular focus is on a young guy who’s legendary father dies early on, unfairly, and who ends up a member of the group led by his father’s murderer.
Status: Good.
Where: Amazon Video
JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure
Episodes 4 to 26
Okay, I was wrong-footed by the first few episodes. JoJo’s Bizzare is far more whacky than they suggest.
Even more unusually, JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure begins to skip through time and even JoJo’s. This is a family adventure with vampires as the baddies.
While I’ve really enjoyed series 1, I do have the slight concern that JoJo and the storytellers aren’t quite as firmly against the Nazis as I would like. There’s a bit too much respect for stalwart warriors and not enough focus on the evil that some of them do.
I’ll absolutely be digging into series 2, though, and will be kicking myself that I left it that long.
Status: Good!
Where: Netflix
Boogiepop and Others
Episodes 8 to 18
I had high hopes for Boogiepop and Others after the trailer, after my research and watching the aged Boogiepop Phantom.
Sorry to say, Boogiepop and Others doesn’t live up to the legacy. It tries to tell a host of stories, trying to weave them together, but the result is cake cut too thinly and disappointing as a result.
It’s hard to care about characters you barely meet and not easy following the plots when you don’t know where you should focus your attention.
While Boogiepop Phantom had some grand climax scenes on an otherwise unnerving and slyly unsettling drama, Boogiepop and Others has a mutant Godzilla, and it feels entirely out of place.
Status: Disappointing.
Where: Crunchyroll
Assassin’s Pride
Episodes 8 to 12
Assassin’s Pride had a wonderful world which is never explored; humanity living in a lantern city and hiding from the darkness. As a result, it was never going to be much more than an average anime.
The show does lots of things right, it’s fairly respectful of the young female heroes, for example.
Annoyingly, I think the bean counters turned up near the end and said “Right, you have four episodes to wrap everything up. Go!” and the writers tried to comply. The plot abandons its careful pacing and races forwards.
The ending, in particular, is rushed and concluded with postscript data dumps. That’s disappointing.
Status: Average.
Where: Crunchyroll
Do you agree with the mini-reviews? Let us know in the comments below or whether you have any recommendations of your own.
