Vivy: Fluorite Eye’s Song – 07
Helghast: After the mayhem of the Metal Float, this week honestly felt like a Carole and Tuesday episode with Vivy getting a hard reset back into Diva and getting back to the musical side of things with a special insert OP. I do like her personality change as it’s overall less stiff than her previous version. She feels a lot more human with her confidence and expressions of a veteren songstress looking to make it big beyond the main stage of Nialand. It even extends to her willingness to throw herself off the building in order to get more information when the AI cube of Matsumoto makes his return in an almost reluctant way. While the first half of Vivy had setpieces keep getting bigger and bigger with falling skyscrapers, falling space stations and an AI island gone crazy, the twist of Ophelia’s future sucide doesn’t seem to have that WOW factor but I’m sure the author has several surprises for the viewers to lose their minds over. I can think of why an AI might end their existence due to the fact that they have failed their mission. While this may or may not be the case with Ophelia, Diva has proven that such a thing is possible at the conclusion of the Metal Float mission. Having her come to terms with it when she regains her memories and seeing how that will play into preventing her AI younger sister’s sucide will be moving at say the least.
Back Arrow – 18
Wooper: Around one-fourth of the dialogue in this week’s Back Arrow was screamed, much of it by Yuki Kaji, the king of tortured anime protagonists. After seeing how unhinged Arrow became in this episode, his casting finally made sense to me, which is not even close to a compliment. How is any of this ultra-dramatic plotting or “loud = emotional” acting supposed to fly under people’s bullshit detectors? Back Arrow has run on pure camp value for most of its run so far, but as soon as the main character hears about his terrible destiny (not for the first time), he starts firing death rays from his mech against his will? And then he takes a break to strategize with his friends about the best way to free him, during which time the enemy sits on their hands and waits for the scene to proceed? There’s so many other series I could be watching that wouldn’t treat me like a hypnotized manchild, but I’m 75 percent of the way through this one now, plus I’ve sort of committed to writing about it. I guess next week I’ll go back to pretending it’s worth my time.
Mashiro no Oto – 06
Wooper: There aren’t many anime that switch OPs halfway through a one-cour run, but I suppose it makes sense in Mashiro no Oto’s case. It’s a show about a shamisen club, so you’d naturally want to replace your instrumentally appropriate theme song with a plain J-rock tune at the halfway point, right? Really though, that switch-up was just one of several parts of this episode that didn’t fly with me. I’d go into more detail, but I was already bluntly dismissive of Back Arrow elsewhere in this post, and I can only express so much disappointment before tiring of the act. Suffice it to say that the less talented club members’ progression isn’t particularly convincing, and the animation has been below par for weeks now, even in the performance scenes (which were once the highlight of the show). I’m ready to drop this one, so I’ll try catching up on a few other things this season to take its place. If you’re reading this from the future, know that Mashiro no Oto doesn’t live up to the promise of its second episode; if you decide to press on anyway, I hope you enjoy it more than I did.
Must be a quiet week if there’s only 3 shows covered in this round-up. Guess the mid-season review is in progress.
Out of all of the episodes so far in Fairy Ranmaru, episode 5 with the bara fairy (who also engages in regular one night stands in his human form) was probably the weakest of the episodes so far, with a dumb loan shark plot in the first half and the weakest magical boy segment so far in the second half despite Takara’s expected horny bara getup. Still, there’s hope that things can pick up from here now that the five fairy boys got their spotlight episodes.
I see Lenlo dropped Mars Red, but episode 6 (which the original playwright said will start deviating from the manga and stage play from this point on) was actually kinda good imo and arguably the best it’s been since the premiere. We saw Maeda confronting Nakajima, who despite having the best of intentions with creating an immortal vampire army to defend Japan and her people just feels wrong on so many levels. Sucks that Yamagami had to die though, although he probably thought being a vampire isn’t all that cracked up to be and didn’t want Maeda to suffer a similar fate. And there’s something about an earthquake coming (since it takes place in 1923, the same year as a real-life disaster that hit the country).
And Moriarty this episode mercifully went back down to earth after the ludicrous spy antics of the previous arc, though it wasn’t free of such things, since it’s another Bonde-focused episode, working with another minor Holmes character Zach Paterson to get inside Scotland Yard through manipulating Sherlock and Lestrade. Not exactly the most exciting episode, and the 007 references that the writers need to awkwardly write around were just as apparent here, but it does provide more setup for the second half of this cour, since Sherlock is more aware that he’s getting used by the Lord of Crime and there’s still Milverton to deal with. Next up is a flashback to Will’s youth and his first bout against the aristocracy in court. Though how they’ll be able to go through the next 3 (four-chapter) arcs after “Merchant of London” within 6 episodes is honestly beyond me.
Mid-season review and me absolutely forgetting to write things for Bakuten and Mars Red
:<
My bad. Ill be back for a double header next week.