Isekai Quartet 3, episode 11 (season finale)

Episode Rating: A- Series Rating: B+ We’ve seen this franchise do massed battles featuring all of the characters for its climaxes three times before (including the movie), so how can the franchise mix that up? By making the climactic battle a musical, of course! Technically this is just following up from episode 10, where ClassContinue reading “Isekai Quartet 3, episode 11 (season finale)”

Isekai Quartet 3, episode 10

Episode Rating: B It’s finally time for the music festival! This being Isekai Quartet, naturally the performances weren’t going to go off without the final boss showing up and a fight breaking out. It’s so expected at this point that hardly anyone in Class 2 even seems fazed by it. In fact, they take itContinue reading “Isekai Quartet 3, episode 10”

Isekai Quartet 3, episode 9

Rating: B+ The appeal of Isekai Quartet is heavily predicated on clever callbacks and sly applications of lore from its components series, so few things in the franchise truly count as plot twists. The revelation that the prize for the upcoming music contest might be one of the mysterious buttons which brought most of theContinue reading “Isekai Quartet 3, episode 9”

Isekai Quartet 3, episode 8

Rating: B- With all of the isekai groups trapped in a modern school setting, the series was bound to get around to one of the great and most crippling distractions of the modern world sooner or later: addictive online and/or mobile games. While this episode features an MMORPG, this is an issue doubtless familiar toContinue reading “Isekai Quartet 3, episode 8”

Isekai Quartet 3, episode 6

Rating: B One thing that this franchise is not known for is being plot-intensive; while it does have writing continuity from episode to episode, it rarely has much of anything for an ongoing plot outside of the movie – and even then the plot is pretty thin. That’s why it’s a bit surprising to seeContinue reading “Isekai Quartet 3, episode 6”

Isekai Quartet 3 episode 2

Rating: B If episode 1 was the tease of the arrival of the Eminence in Shadow crew then episode 2 is that series’ formal introduction to the Isekai Quartet sphere. Specifically, Cid and the Seven Shadows all join class 1, which prior to this point had consisted of the Shield Hero trio and the secondaryContinue reading “Isekai Quartet 3 episode 2”

The Eminence in Shadow episode 32 (season finale)

Rating: B+ Ragnarok is upon us! Well, sort of. Really, it’s just an opportunity for Shadow to fight a boss monster-type foe while his Shadow Garden minions do all of the lesser work. The minor problem for the series is that Ragnarok just isn’t that interesting a foe on its own. Sure, it wrecks partContinue reading “The Eminence in Shadow episode 32 (season finale)”

The Eminence in Shadow episode 31

Rating: B+ During the last couple of reviews, I wondered why the succession of the Oriana Kingdom bypassed the former queen and went straight to Rose. This episode gives us the answer: the former king, in one of his few moments of lucidity towards the end of his life, forced the succession onto Rose byContinue reading “The Eminence in Shadow episode 31”

The Eminence in Shadow, episode 30

Rating: B+ As I watched this week’s episode, I was struck by the thought that I have been overlooking one big inherent irony: Shadow Garden’s behavior is itself very cult-like, especially in the way it idolizes and even (in some cases) outright worships Shadow. That comes through clearly in the different reactions of 559 andContinue reading “The Eminence in Shadow, episode 30”

The Eminence in Shadow, episode 29

Rating: B The prostitute Marie was shown too prominently back in episode 21 for her to not pop up again later, so it’s little surprise that her reappearance comes as the story shifts to what Cid was doing after he stepped out of the picture for a while at the end of episode 27. Unfortunately,Continue reading “The Eminence in Shadow, episode 29”