Anime Watch is now in column form! Tune in for reviews of Psycho Pass, Terra Formars, and Gundam Reconguista in G.

Psycho-Pass Episode 3

Over the last three weeks, Psycho-Pass has had me coming back, and while it’s only three episodes in currently, I don’t have the same ‘sucking in’ feeling I got from its first season. That’s to be expected, but it’s still not quite there a recommendable continuation. Perhaps they’re building to the season finale to really leave us talking, and they are presenting an interesting over-arching story, but it’s not quite “there” yet.

This was certainly my favorite episode of this season however (not that there is a large stretch of episode to hold it up against), but the opening and close to this episode had me glued to the screen in anticipation. In the midst of all of that, Akane spends a chunk of the episode meeting with Jouji Saiga who hints about Kougami and to get his thoughts on the case. It’s a somber moment in an otherwise intense episode. Unfortunately for Akane, a comrade of hers, Mika Shimotsuki is hesitant to trust her, and the investigation. I’m sure this will lead to a small arc of trust-building, or Miki’s death. Either way, it should be a bloody time!

There is still plenty of time for Psycho-Pass to regain its lineage, and live up to the first season, but I trust the Production I.G. team to deliver on the expectations… and if they don’t oh well, it just continues the trope that the first seasons of anime are almost always the best in the long run. Funimation has the streaming rights to Psycho-Pass, so head to their site for new episodes every week. Be sure to stick with Laser Time every week for more anime episode reviews as we’re only about a third of the way through this season! Let’s hope I can make it all the way through it, eh?

Terra Formars Episode 5

Once again, you can’t count on any one side of the Terra Formars factions to get in too much attention before the other comes back for retribution. Marcos and Michelle take center stage this week, as we get backstory on both, but one of them may not see the light of day again after this week’s finale.

Maybe it’s Stockholm syndrome or perhaps I’m too tired to be writing all of this, but maybe Terra Formars is finally becoming a well-rounded series. The characters are finally getting more motivations and backstories, and the cockroaches are getting brutalized by the Annex crews. Marcos’ frustrations from losing Sheila are helping power him to decimate the Mars residents, while Michelle’s combined strength of her father’s genes and her own surgery exemplify her forte.

This was likely the most heartwarming and endearing episode of Terra Formars we’ll ever get, and it was a good one. I can’t quite explain it, but something about this show is charming me more and more every week. I still can’t say it’s a classic or will be mentioned outside of the censorship issues for years to come, but it’s an entertaining watch, if not just for the brutal eviscerations and battles. The finale to this episode was also a good setup for next week. There’s never a break, and now that one of the captains has been pulled below, what hope do those recruits have? I expect a massive amount of casualties next week, despite a strong battlefront standing against it.

Gundam Reconguista in G Episode 5

More and more characters keep getting added to Gundam Reconguista’s cast, and this week’s newest entrant is the mysterious masked man from the Capital Army: Mask. Yes, Yoshiyuki Tomino named a character “Mask”. *SIGH* the article mentioned later in this review should help sum up my thoughts on Gundam Reconguista in G.

I’ve been enjoying Gundam Reconguista, and I still do; every week I praise it for being different, not of the same Gundam mold, and presenting a relatively light-hearted story NOT full of angst. But as Toshio Okada says in this link, Yoshiyuki Tomino is really confusing fans and newcomers alike: “Ordinary people watch this and don’t know what’s happening, but Tomino thinks it has to be like this.” To be fair, Okada is a predominantly hard sell on most anime things anyway, but he’s raised a few good points, who is this series for? Is it for Gundam fans, newcomers, or both? It’s really hard to say, even only after 5 episodes, but it’s going to take the entire first cour to really determine it seems.

Gundam Reconguista is still an enjoyable series to watch, and I’m able to follow along well enough and be entertained, but it’s also a bit hard to recommend to newcomers as it stands. I’ll certainly wait for the first 13-or-so episodes air before I say newcomers should watch this, but Gundam fans and familiars should have enough here to tolerate and enjoy Gundam Reconguista.