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First Impressions Reviews

Spring 2019 First Impressions – One Punch Man Season 2

An increase in villain activity has the Hero Organization worried that the “Earthdoom prophecy” will soon come to pass. In an effort to alleviate the overworked heroes, they turn to villains themselves for help. The decision looks ill-advised as at least one villain is more interested in helping the prophecy along than preventing it.ANN

Streaming: Hulu

Episodes: TBA

Source: Manga

Episode Summary: Following Saitama’s climactic extraterrestrial conflict, things settle down a bit in M City. Saitama still serves in a mentorship role for cyborg hero Genos, though from the looks of it Genos is pretty capable of handling himself. Unfortunately, the appearance rate of lower-level baddies has increased quite a bit, so there’s little time for rest and relaxation. As they soon discover, a new S-Class hero named “King” has been getting quite the reputation lately. When King makes an appearance, his threatening aura intimidates evil-doers and excites his adoring public. Saitama is curious enough about the man that he decides to follow King and watch as he does battle with a giant, rampaging cyborg foe.

As it turns out, King’s reputation is just that – only a reputation. He just happens to be someone whose bad luck attracts bad guys, but no matter how many confrontations he has, it’s always someone else who punches out the antagonists in the end. Saitama uncovers this during a video-gaming session with King. In exchange, Saitama recommends a strength-building regimen to help the poser gain some confidence (this is, of course, as Saitama destroys a winged monster one-handed). In the meantime, the Hero Association is struggling to address the culmination of a prophecy, which seems imminent due to the increased criminal activity in the region. They choose to take an unorthodox route in addressing this by welcoming all of the city’s low-level thugs and inviting them to join forces. Some seem to be on board with this, but there are others whose motivations seem directly opposed to cooperation.

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Special Features

The Complexities of Motherhood

Please Note: This post contains character and plot spoilers for several anime series and films, including A Place Further Than the Universe, The Promised Neverland, Made in Abyss, and Mirai.

Last year around Mothers’ Day, I used the opportunity to feature one of my favorite anime mothers from the previous year. While I’d originally wanted to do the same thing this year, I ran into a bit of an issue – nothing that I’d watched from the past year or so struck me as having a really central, memorable mother (or mother-type) character who wasn’t already missing or dead. Too often, nurturing family members are sacrificed at the altar of “character development,” allowing a protagonist to develop pathos as their earthly familial connections are ripped away in return. This leaves one with very few choices of motherly role-models. This isn’t to say that there weren’t great moms this year, but I was unfortunately not lucky enough to view anything in which a mother’s story was detailed, complete, and plot-central.

As someone still attempting to become a mother, even as the world around me does its best to demonstrate its hostility toward me and other women (mothers or not), what I’m consistently reminded of is the fact that motherhood itself is a complicated and messy state of being, filled with decisions that have no correct answers. While I hesitate to assert that all mothers have their children’s best interests in mind (unfortunately, abusive situations exist and I think it would be unjust to folks who’ve experienced them to say otherwise), I do believe that the majority of parents out there are trying to do the best with what resources they have. I think that anime and manga might honestly be better at featuring the messier aspects of parenthood than the average, mostly-positive ones that (hopefully) exist in reality.