Yowamushi Pedal: "First Day of Camp!"

It is 23 December 2013, and time for episode 12 of Yowamushi Pedal.

The Sohoku team head to a special cycling facility for a four-day training camp. On the way Onoda gets sick and is left by the road to wait for the follow-up van to pick him up. While there he meets Manami, an enthused cyclist from another high school. Once at the camp the first years learn their training regimen is simply - and almost impossible: cycle 1,000 kilometres in four days with modified bicycles designed to remove their specific riding strengths.

Yowamushi Pedal appears to be produced on a relatively tight budget. I make this assumption because the quality of the animation is proving to be quite variable. Some episodes, usually the climactic racing-based ones, look rock-solid. Others, including this episode here, seem littered with shots that are comparatively substandard. The proportions feel wrong, and the perspective looks terrible. It is by no means a deal-breaker in terms of watching the show, but it does stand out.

Yowamushi Pedal: "Human Bullet Train!!"

It is 16 December 2013, and time for the 11th episode of Yowamushi Pedal.

The day after their special training sessions, the first years discover that the senior classmen have all travelled in secret to the preliminaries of the Inter-High Championship. Not wanting to miss seeing their schoolmates compete, Onoda, Naruko and Imaizumi sneak out of school to see the race. When they arrive, they discover the Sohoku team trailing in third with 50 seconds between them and their competitors.

To an extent this episode feels like an epilogue to the first 10 episodes, since it sets up the Inter-High Championships and gives a brief taste of the rival cyclists and teams that the protagonists are going to face. On the one level it's a nice piece of set-up. On another it makes the episode feel relatively redundant, since it is just sign-posting stuff the audience is going to encounter in due course anyway.

Yowamushi Pedal: "Peak Spider"

It is 9 December 2013, and time for episode 10 of Yowamushi Pedal.

With the first club race complete, each new member is paired with a senior student to better develop their skills. Onoda is matched with Makashima, to improve his skills at climbing hills. Makashima's personal style, however, may be a little too distinct for Onoda to learn.

And, in fact, Makashima actively discourages Onoda from even trying. His nickname, "Peak Spider", comes from his bizarre weaving style of cycling uphill. After the overly lengthy serial of the club race, this episode is refreshingly self-contained. It is a nice continuation of the technical explanation of competitive racing, but that is balanced with a really enjoyable character piece.

Red Dwarf: "Officer Rimmer"

It is 13 October 2016, and time for another episode of Red Dwarf.

After an act of cowardice accidentally saves another starship, Rimmer (Chris Barrie) is promoted to lieutenant. Not only does he take the opportunity to lord it over his crewmates, he uses a captured bio-printer to replicate himself dozens of times to populate the whole of Red Dwarf with Rimmers.

As with all of the other episodes of Red Dwarf's 11th season, "Officer Rimmer" takes a bunch of old episodes and throws them into a blender. In this case the resulting mess feels deeply unpalatable - while there are a few early jokes that work incredibly well, the episode as a whole simply fails to work. You can only recycle these sorts of jokes so many times, and in the main Red Dwarf appears to have passed that limit some time ago.

Red Dwarf: "Give and Take"

It is 6 October 2016 and time for another episode of Red Dwarf.

When exploring a soon to be destroyed space station, Lister (Craig Charles) is captured by an insane medical droid and has his kidneys removed. With only days left to life, he must convince the Cat (Danny John-Jules) to donate a replacement kidney.

With this 11th season of Red Dwarf there has been an enormous reliance on revisiting and remixing old storylines. This left the season premiere "Twentica" feeling particularly tired and repetitive, but managed to make the second episode "Samsara" a rather pleasant slice of nostalgia. "Give and Take" falls somewhere in between. There is some great character work and some genuinely funny gags, but the core narrative has simply been lifted from other episodes.

Yowamushi Pedal: "Full Power vs Full Power"

It is 2 December 2013, and time for episode 9 of Yowamushi Pedal.

Onoda and Imaizumi race the final 500 metres to reach the peak and claim the "King of the Mountain" title. Naruko has tipped the balance in Onoda's favour, however, having taught him a new racing trick before he caught up with Imaizumi. With his energy then spent, however, Onoda may not be able to finish the race.

This episode takes 10 minutes for Onoda and Imaizumi to ride 500 metres. I commented a few episodes back that the racing scenes feel as if they are occurring in real time. Now they're occurring at considerably less than real time. Time is now slowing in Yowamushi Pedal to such a degree that it is effectively being presented in slow motion.

Nanana's Buried Treasure: "The Nanae Island Third High School Adventure Club"

It is 17 April 2014, and time for the second episode of Nanana's Buried Treasure.

Jugo collects a small box that arrived without explanation via a little parachute into a back alley. Inside he finds a mysterious jewel. Nanana shows him that by holding it up to his eye he can see if people are lying to him or not. The following morning a young detective named Tensai and her assistant Daraku arrive on Jugo's doorstep to accuse him of being a thief. Later Jugo is invited to join the local Adventurer's Club - the same club Nanana led when she was murdered.

Goodness this series is a mess. Two episodes in - out of a total of 11 - I find myself struggling to understand precisely what Nanana's Buried Treasure is supposed to be about. A big problem is the characters. While the audience is still getting to know Jugo and Nanana, the series throws in Tensai and Daraku and then adds a bunch of members from the Adventurer's Club who all come too thick and fast to even remember their names. It's utterly confusing.

Yowamushi Pedal: "Sprint Climb!!"

It is 25 November 2013, and time for episode 8 of Yowamushi Pedal.

Onoda finally catches up with Naruko and Imaizuki. All three test one another's abilities as they make the difficult climb up to the peak. Imaizumi explains to Onoda about how the first rider to reach the peak will be declared "King of the Mountain" for the race. Naruko makes a break ahead, defying Imaizumi's dismissal that he is purely a sprint racer. As the peak approaches, Onoda decides to give his all in an attempt to get there first.

Three cyclists ride up part of a mountain road. That is literally all that happens in this episode of Yowamushi Pedal. I worked out at the very beginning of the series that this was going to a drawn-out, leisurely-paced story, but this really is a lot slower than I had anticipated even then. This is Dragonball Z-style "takes three episodes to power up a fireball fistfight" kind of a pace, and while the characters remain likeable and the cycling trivia interesting, there really is a difference between 'slow' and 'much, much too slow'. In this episode at least we're crossing a line.

Sun in the Last Days of the Shogunate (1957)

In the 1860s Japan is in a turbulent period of transition as the Americans' gunboat diplomacy forces the country to interact with a broader world. In a Tokyo brothel a grifter named Saheji (Frankie Sakai) overstays with no money, and is forced to work off his debt over the winter.

Sun in the Last Days of the Shogunate (released by Eureka's Masters of Cinema label under its Japanese title Bakumatsu Taiyoden) is a 1957 comedy directed by Yuzo Kawashima. In its own country it has been regarded as an all-time classic for many decades. A 2009 survey in the prestigious film journal Kinema Junpo ranked it as Japan's fourth-greatest film of all time, for example. Despite its local acclaim it has only recently become widely available to English-speaking audiences: better late than never.

This is a great movie comedy. While it does take a little while to build up steam, it is a beautifully performed farce with a nicely political edge, and a wonderful central performance by the stand-up comedian and actor Frankie Sakai.

Red Dwarf: "Samsara"

It is 29 September 2016, and for the second episode of Red Dwarf XI.

The Red Dwarf discovers an escape capsule. As it approaches Kryten (Robert Llewelyn) and the Cat (Danny John-Jules) speak to one of the survivors. When the capsule is opened, both survivors are dead. The capsule's trajectory is tracked back to a crashed spaceship - the Samsara - lying at the sea floor of an ocean moon. Once onboard Kryten and Rimmer (Chris Barrie) are separated from the Cat and Lister (Craig Charles) and the true horror of the Samsara is revealed.

Last week I complained about how weak and tired the season premiere of Red Dwarf seemed to be. It was filled with old, repetitive jokes, and drew its humour from science fiction concepts and situations without really exploiting the core cast for humour. I always feel comedy comes best not from story but from interaction between characters, and over the years Red Dwarf seems to have increasingly forgotten that fact. I'm not sure if "Samsara" is honestly any fresher - it's still recycling the same jokes that have maintained the series for close to 30 years - but it at least works with the characters this time around. The result is a genuinely funny, if old-fashioned, half-hour of TV comedy.

Yowamushi Pedal: "I Want to Catch Up!"

It is 18 November 2013, and time for the seventh episode of Yowamushi Pedal.

Armed with a proper racing bike for the first time, Onoda sets off in an attempt to close a near-impossible eight-minute lead and catch up with Imaizumi and Naruko. As the race begins to snake up the side of a mountain, it may be too difficult a task for Onoda to achieve. Meanwhile up ahead Imaizumi and Naruko have an unexpected encounter with a mysterious Frenchman.

So Yowamushi Pedal is a slow-paced series, with racing sequences that appear to be more or less occurring in real time. This cycling club welcome race for the first year students kicked off two episodes ago, ran all through the last episode, and is barely halfway through by the end of this one. I had a sneaky glance ahead and confirmed that the entire race, including the preparations, takes a full five episodes to play out. That's not even a championship race: it's simply the first race for new students.

Yowamushi Pedal: "Welcoming Race"

It is 11 November 2013, and time for episode 6 of Yowamushi Pedal.

The first years' welcoming race begins: a 60 kilometre trail through the city, across flat roads, up a mountain, and around a dam. Onoda is excited to finally share a competitive race with Imaizumi and Naruko, but his excitement soon turns to despair when his 'mommy bike' simply cannot keep up with the other riders' racing bikes.

There is an immediate and overriding question that hangs over this episode: why did the cycling club allow Onoda to race with his mommy boke in the first place. It is clearly under-specced compared to the other riders, guaranteeing failure from the get-go. So why go on with the race? It may make for momentary drama on-screen, but it feels like a baffling move to generate suspense at the expense of actual story logic.

Yowamushi Pedal: "The Sōhoku High School Bicycle Racing Team"

It is 4 November 2013, and time for episode 5 of Yowamushi Pedal.

Onoda is shocked to discover Naruko has become a student at his high school, and is persuaded by Naruko to go with him to join the school's bicycle racing club. On the way they encounter three other prospective new members: Kawada, Sakurai, and the weirdly over-confident Terufumi. All six first-year students are expecting a warm welcome. Instead they are told they must compete in their first race immediately - and only the fastest two will compete in the inter-school championships.

Yowamushi Pedal has shown the Sōhoku High bicycle club a few times already, but only ever in relatively brief snippets. It has taken until this fifth episode to actually send the lead characters over to try and join them. I actually like the patience in that, particularly in a series that has such a high episode count. It has given the audience time to get to know and like Onoda, Imaizumi and Miki, and certainly experience Naruko - I'm not sure like is the best word, but I am warming to him a little.

Red Dwarf: "Twentica"

It is 22 September 2016, and time for the Season 11 premiere of Red Dwarf.

When a group of cyborgs travel back in time to change Earth's history, Lister (Craig Charles), Rimmer (Chris Barrie), Cat (Danny John-Jules) and Kryten (Robert Llewelyn) ride the timestream back to stop them. They discover an alternative 1920s America where technology has been outlawed and the cyborgs rule the Earth.

Red Dwarf returned last year for an 11th season, beginning with this time travel adventure. It's been a long-running series with some enormous gaps in between seasons: while this might be the 11th season, it comes a full 28 years after the series began. It feels old. It feels worn out and jaded. Obviously the cast are almost three decades older, but that's fine: actors get old, and there are always stories you can tell with a man in his 50s that you cannot tell about a man in his 20s. The cast have aged. The characters, by-and-large, have not. The series itself - the sense of humour, the plots, the gags - just feels so dreadfully, miserably old. Even the jokes are likely receiving an old age pension.

Yowamushi Pedal: "Naruko Shoukichi"

It is 28 October 2013, and time for another episode of Yowamushi Pedal.

While visiting the anime fan's paradise Akihabara, Onoda meets Naruko Shoukichi, a loud and aggressive cyclist from Japan's Kansai region. When a passing motorist flicks a lit cigarette onto Onada's bicycle, Naruko is incensed and insists they chase down the car on their bikes to flick the cigarette butt back. The chase further educates Onoda on the science and strategy of high-speed cycling.

There are two main elements to this fourth episode of Yowamushi Pedal. The first is an explanation for high-speed cycling techniques, including the use of gears and slipstreaming in high winds. The second is the introduction of the series' fourth key character: the noisy, brash and ridiculously self-centred Naruko Shoukichi.

This is the End (2013)

A group of narcissistic actors get together for a raucous party - only for the world to end at the same time. Trapped inside James Franco's Hollywood mansion, they must contend with a post-apocalyptic world of fire and demons while not turning upon one another at the same time.

This is the End, directed by Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg, feels like a genuinely inventive Hollywood comedy. It takes the assembled cast of a whole generation of recent comedies, including Rogen, Franco, Danny McBride, Jonah Hill, and others, and gets them to play ridiculous parodies of themselves in a disastrous situation. On the one level it's the ultimate in 'inside baseball' comedies, since so much of the humour depends on familiarity with the various and actors and their films. On the other it's a really fresh idea that is played out to wonderful extremes.

Obviously comedy is particularly subjective, and if you do not enjoy the sorts of comedy films usually produced by the likes of Franco, Rogen or McBride you are unlikely to see much appeal here. If you're a fan, however, this is absolutely one of their best works.

Yowamushi Pedal: "I Don't Have Any Friends"

It is 21 October 2013, and time for Yowamushi Pedal.

Competitive cycling enthusiast Imaizumi has challenged Onada to a race up the sharp incline to their high school, because he wants to see Onada's freakish natural talent for cycling uphill for himself. To give Onada an incentive he has agreed to join Onada's anime club at school should he be beaten. Halfway through the race, it seems as if Onada has no chance - until assistance from Miki gives him the boost he needs.

The majority of this episode is taken up by the second half of Imaizumi and Onada's bicycle race, which one would think would make it a pretty boring episode. As it turns out it's pretty great, thanks to some great action and a clever insertion of real-life bicycle maintenance and cycling practice.

Yowamushi Pedal: "To Recruit More Members"

It is 14 October 2013, and time for episode 2 of Yowamushi Pedal.

Having seen Onoda's freakish abilities at cycling uphill, Imaizumi challenges him to a race: from the town below the school all the way around to the steep rear entrance. To give Onoda a stake in the race, Imaizumi promises to join Onoda's anime club if Onoda wins the race. Hearing of their contest, Miki organises a group of friends to watch and cheer the cyclists on.

There is good and bad in this second episode of Yowamushi Pedal, but it is mainly good. The series continues to impress with its immensely likeable characters and great sense of humour. On the other hand, the effectively slow pace of the episode - the race begins but does not end here - suggests, along with the episode count lying ahead, that this is going to be a very stretched-out kind of a series. While I am concerned my patience may not last, given I'm notoriously slow and lazy at finishing anime, for now its immense charms are keeping me watching.

Yowamushi Pedal: "Because I Can Go to Akiba for Free"

It is 7 October 2013, and time for the first episode of Yowamushi Pedal.

Onoda Sakamichi has his first day at Chiba Sohoku Public High School, where he plans on joining the school's anime club. Upon arrival he is dismayed to discover that the club has been closed down with no groups available other than athletic ones. Another new student, Imaizume Shusuke, is a hyper-competitive cyclist who plans to join and dominate the school's cycling club - only to discover that Sakamichi, who rides his bike 45km a day to visit Akihabara and buy anime merchandise, is secretly an enormously talanted rider himself.

Yowamushi Pedal is an amiable comedy-drama anime based around a high school cycling club, and based on the popular manga by Wataru Watanabe. It is a sports anime as well, a genre that has been rolling along to great success for decades now. I have never really watched that much sports anime. I did enjoy Tsuritama, a 12-part anime about bass fishing, but it also featured mind control and aliens. Yowamushi Pedal is just about the cycling, and its first season alone is much, much longer.

Fleabag (2016)

Fleabag, written by and starring Phoebe Waller-Bridge, is the best television series of 2016. It is nominally a six-episode half-hour comedy produced in partnership between the BBC and Amazon Studios. While it is savagely funny throughout, selling Fleabag purely as some kind of new sitcom severely under-sells its achievements. It is also a superb and deeply effective drama, capable of some of the most gut-wrenching moments of upset in between its harsh, cutting laughs. It is a complete cliche to claim 'you'll laugh, you'll cry', but in the later episodes in particularly I have to admit to both laughing out loud and tearing up within the same 25 minute episode.

Waller-Bridge plays the protagonist, an unnamed woman living in London and single-handedly running a failing guinea pig-themed cafe. She is constantly breaking up with her boyfriend Harry (Hugh Skinner) to indulge in one-night stands. She regularly squabbles with her tightly wound sister Clare (Sian Clifford). Her mother has died, and her father (Bill Paterson) has married a close family friend: a supremely passive-aggressive artist (Olivia Colman) with whom the protagonist (which publicity materials have nicknamed "Fleabag") has a deeply antagonistic relationship. From the first episode there is an enormous awful mystery hanging over the story. We know that something dreadful has happened, but the full story - and its full implications - trickles out over the course of the season.