Author: AidanAK47

Darling in the Franxx – 16[Days of Our Lives]

by AidanAK47, posted in Currently Watching:, Darling in the Franxx

After the action packed last episode of Franxx, we return to the birdcage for a easygoing episode of the squad learning to be self sufficient after their caretakers suddenly stop providing for them. A change which appears to be at Dr Franxx’s request and I find myself wondering about this man’s objective is. From the flashbacks he seems to be of rather questionable character what with him torturing Zero Two and erasing memories. Yet when taking into account what he is doing in the present it almost seems as though he is trying to help the squad mature as people. It’s hard to determine if this is some attempt to redeem himself or if their is some hidden dark agenda to his actions. Or if Franxx is just neutral in general and prioritises scientific progress over any kind of morally so how good or evil he is depends on which choice brings the best experimental results.

Despite the episode for the most part being rather easygoing and uplifting with even Zero Two making a rather jarring change in personality, this episode just feels foreboding throughout. The fun and games may be sweet on the surface but under that is a cynicism over what the future has to bring. Several characters make statements which tempt Murphys Law such as Goro remarking about how they feel without purpose with the leaders putting them on standby until further notice. Above all Hiro saying the ultimate death flag by claiming that he and Zero Two will always be together which is almost comically timed with a small rumbling of the ground right after. Miku has white hairs on her head signalling premature aging, Zorome stating that they shouldn’t bother praying to father before eating and even Futoshi revealing he has an eating disorder. That last bit about Futoshi was quite a surprising one as he was always the lighthearted fellow who played to the usual trope of being the fat guy who eats a lot. But I wonder if his condition is the result of the standby orders or something that developed after Kokoro left him. Though sadly I do like how Kokoro and Mitsuru’s relationship is developing. She seems remarkably aggressive which might be a product of that baby book she picked up before maybe?

But with that comes back a particular flaw that I remarked about earlier in the series. Namely the jarring switch from easy going fun times to serious drama. Franxx has always had this problem interchanging between the two but it hasn’t reared its head in a while because the last few episodes have mostly been serious affair. But now we have a sudden shift with Zorome trying to force Futoshi to eat playfully at first only for him to start getting aggressive and reveal that he knew Futoshi wasn’t eating. It certainly is a change when you consider that this is in tone with his usual bratty self but actually being concerned over Futoshi. Admittedly he’s handling it in a terrible way what with outting him in front of everyone but you can as least tell it’s not out of malice but a genuine want to help him. But this dramatic shift just didn’t feel natural and was more the product of making things more dramatic for the sake of drama. I look at how Full Metal Panic naturally resolve a personal dilemma with care and find Franxx’s approach to be far too grandstanding. You don’t need a shouting match followed by a group hug to make drama. Really acknowledging that there is a problem and it’s not something that can just be “fixed” is a more mature approach to storytelling. Maybe not quite as visually impactful but meaningful in presenting the characters better. On a last note the new ending appears to confirm that Ikuno is indeed gay. On one hand it’s good to get confirmation but I also feel a little disappointed that the internet’s shortsighted assumptions were proven correct.

Full Metal Panic Invisible Victory – 04[On My Own]

by AidanAK47, posted in Currently Watching:, Full Metal Panic Invisible Victory

Damn. I mean damn. You would think bringing back an old series like this would begin to show its age but Full Metal Panic looks to have aged like fine wine. This episode really pulled off the desperate struggle Sousuke was going through and hit hard with action and the new serious tone it’s been going for. WIth this episode we finish animating the seventh volume of the series and it ended with quite a bang. The last few episodes have been a pure destruction of the school setting and lighthearted antics of Full Metal Panic. Nothing quite makes that hit home more that seeing Kyouko, almost the symbol of that side of the series, pierced through the stomach with debri. It looks very much like she will live but the moment she turned around and seeing that wound caused an emotional reaction in me I can’t quite explain. I wouldn’t even consider her to be a character I particular cared for in the original series but seeing that was akin to seeing a child mascot get mowed down in a hail of gunfire.

It most likely is a product of the nostalgia gathered after 12 years but that moment made you feel the exact same way as Sousuke did. Almost a desecration of something sacred. Though we did get one small callback to funnier times when the student council president references the dangerous gas of Fumofu’s last episode to get the school to evacuate. In the novel the villain actually remarks that it would be impossible to evacuate a school that fast and for any other school this would be true. But this school knows Sousuke and therefore when they say he’s done something insane then it’s time to run.

This episode was a confirmation that this series will completely abandon the lighthearted tone of old as Sousuke leaves the school to chase down Chidori. It’s admittedly a bit of a cliche for Chidori to give herself up to the enemy in order to save Sousuke but in this case I allow it as we got to see Sousuke lose badly for the first time in the series. This was him battered to the brink, with Arbalest destroyed and left down to nothing but a pistol, but still firing it in vain. On that note, the mecha CGI was beautiful, Belials animation makes look remarkably cool and you can truly feel the weight of these machines in their movement. Also in this episode we got the reveal of Wraith whom, to be blunt, I completely forgot about. It’s not that unbelievable to do so seeing as Wraith never really showed up until second raid and there she didn’t reveal herself and mainly fought on the sidelines. But I certainly did a double take seeing her disguise herself as a the teacher and suddenly kick all kinds of ass. I was half believing that the teacher was an undercover operative this whole time. The Tuatha de Danaan ramming a behemoth was also superb. Overall I am very satisfied with how Xebec has handled the adaption and I hope they can keep this up.

Legend of the Galactic Heroes Die Neue These – 5[Birth of the 13th Fleet]

by AidanAK47, posted in Currently Watching:, Legend of the Galactic Heroes Die Neue These

Now this was the part of the original OVA series that I really started to get interested in LOGH though in that this was episode 3. I find it great that neither Reinhards nor Yangs society is perfect so there is no real villain in regards to the two sides. No side is effectively more right because both have their positives and negatives. The Empire is good if you are born Nobility but otherwise the class divide has a hefty amount of unfair privileges and prejudice. The Free Planets Alliance allows for personal freedom…assuming of course that person is supporting the war and doesn’t have pacifist sentiments. Both are essentially a dictatorship, just that one is more open about it while the other hides it under a false pretense of equality. Nothing shows this more than the politician Truniht making a impassioned speech at a funeral about the glory of dying for your country and how people should aid in the war against the empire. Jessica Edwards certainly made a good point in interrupting that speech by pointing out that what he is saying is true but is highly hypocritical when Truniht and his loved ones remain safely outside of the war while others go to die for their country. It’s all well and good to praise the guillotine as being a honorable death but you better be willing to put your head under it if you want your words to hold weight.

But boy, Truniht truly is a slimy politician that makes me hate him all over again. He just has that absolute insincerity and greed. Topped off with his own personal army which is disguised as a radical nationalist group whom remove anyone who poses the slightest risk to his influence, he truly is the kind of creature I would love to toss out an airlock. So I relish any opportunity for people to piss him off, be it Jessica pointing out his hypocrisy or Yang refusing to stand and applaud his speech. It is interesting to note that the officer that berated Yang for not standing up is the same officer who assaulted his home leading the PKC. On that I will say that the anime didn’t quite do a good job explaining why the PKC gave up so easily. It wasn’t just because they were sprayed with water but also because that activated the fire control system and called the police to Yangs house. Julian certainly is making himself at home though at this point in time he’s been living there for quite a while. The remake does a better job of showing how young Julian was while in the OVA he looked more like a young man than a teenager. Got to say that both of them were quite calm in handling the whole situation of the PKC throwing a grenade through the window. Almost as if it was a regular occurrence.

So Yang is given his next mission to capture Isolation Fortress, which has quite a big role throughout the series. I think next episode will go into detail as to why this fortress is so important so I won’t explain why but this mission is really risky. It’s like an ultimatum to Yang, either pull off something no one ever has and win more accolades or die in battle so as to not be a thorn in Truniht’s side. Yet Yang always responds with the attitude of a salaryman going to another day of work. I rather liked the small moment where Yang held a broken piece of a plate in his hand after the PKC attack, remarking that it was the only genuine thing his father had. Suggesting that his father was a bit of a conman with his merchandise. From the look of next episode it seems we are not getting back to Reinhard yet and instead be seeing how Yang handles his unreasonable mission.

Full Metal Panic Invisible Victory – 03[Big One Percent]

by AidanAK47, posted in Currently Watching:, Full Metal Panic Invisible Victory

We got nearly a full episode of mecha combat so time for those CGI animators to show us what they can do. Now I gave this series a lot of grief last episode over CGI, so it’s only fitting to commend the CGI this episode as that was some excellent mecha CGI. not quite seamless enough to not be recognised as CGI but the movement of the mechs made it very easy to forgive that. Three quarters of the episode was pretty much mecha combat and it didn’t feel janky while also conveying the weight of these mechs. 2D mecha would still be preferred obviously but as an alternative I am fine with this as well. I loved the scene were the behemoth jammed the barrel of it’s cannon into a mecha, swung the mech upward and shot it in midair. Admittedly it was supposed to be a rather grim death scene but I saw that and immediately thought “Damn that was cool.” Speaking of which we did have some death scenes, though none of characters that were all that well known.

Seems they may have gotten more attention in the novels but right here and now all I scene was background character cannon fodder. Though one of which was Speck, who was the soldier that was joking about mutiny one episode back. Now sacrificing his life to give Kurtz a shot at taking down a behemoth. Again it does feel a bit trite but I find myself willing to forgive it. Another argument I have heard is in why Kurtz pretty much watched Speck die without doing anything and only after it finished killing him. But someone brought up that he couldn’t get a clear shot because the composite armour was all he could see and once the mech turned it’s head, he had a clear shot at the exposed head. Makes sense as firing beforehand would cause him to lose the surprise factor, which when fighting Behemoths is integral to taking them down. One detail I really love is that upon Kurtz taking out the main control of the behemoth, the mech was crushed under its own weight. Ultimately black technology is what keeps these robots bipedal and if you take that out then the robot quite literally destroys itself.

Other than that we got a really nice scene with Sousuke and Chidori where in the do a thing that a majority of couples need to do in anime. Actually communicate with each other. You could call it an anticlimactic resolution to their individual problems but it certainly is good to see characters actually deal with their problems instead of letting them bottle up their emotions until the appropriate climatic moment for maximum dramatic effect. Like episode 14 of a certain show about Darlings. The fact of the matter is that these two have been through a lot so actually seeing them talk things out is excellent development for them. Chidori admits to being both in love and scared of Sousuke with Sousuke admitting the same thing about her. You would think it would take an entire episode for Chidori to push Sousuke to rescue her classmates over protecting her and yet Sousuke cuts that right off by stating that he wants to protect Chidori and the school life that she cares for. Admittedly in the novel there was a bit more Angst with Chidori suddenly talking furious technobabble to explain the situation being hopeless and the manga goes even further than that. So I actually prefer how it was handled in the anime, less dramatic, more sensible. Cause those things are precious to him too. Actually makes me wish I could have given the entire series a rewatch up until this point cause this really does feel like a development the series has been building towards for a long time.

Wotaku ni Koi wa Muzukashii – 03[Sales Event and Gamers Meetup]

by AidanAK47, posted in Currently Watching:, Wotaku ni Koi wa Muzukashii

Certainly a better episode than the last but I think I have come to an understanding about this show. I don’t think the comedy will work on me quite as well as the manga did. For example, that running joke about Narumi not being able to remember the colour of her panties when she was going to Hirotaka’s apartment had me chuckling while reading the manga. But here I was mostly stone faced as they did it despite the actual events being pretty much the same as the manga. It could be that I simply knew the joke was coming and what it was building to so it wasn’t funny anymore. However I think there may be another factor, one that I can’t quite pin down. While watching I just have this general vague feeling that while the presentation of the is show is serviceable, it feels rather routine. This show doesn’t require a massive animation budget but here it seems we only meet the bare minimum and there is a lot of reliance on still reaction shots. The direction as well just feels uninspired with it following the manga panels and any other content being bland shots with no life to them. People just feel a bit too stiff in this to me and I think they could take notes from KyoAni in how to make characters feel alive with minor actions.

Still while the humor of this show isn’t quite catching me, I find it a relaxing show to chill out to. Really these characters just have great communication and exchanges. Narumi and Hirotaka know each other back to front so they are always on the same wavelength. The only time they seem awkward is when it comes to romance which both of them have trouble incorporating into their previous friendship. Hirotaka doesn’t quite know how to approach Hiromi ending up with is more aggressive moves being too abrupt and not suiting the mood. It certainly was amusing that he invited Narumi over just to play games while Narumi was mentally preparing herself to go all the way. Certainly there is a disconnect between them when it comes to romance as Narumi seems more experienced while Hirotaka seems less and thus he takes things slow while Narumi expects more. Oddly the other couple of the series has the opposite problem, where in romance they seem to get along swimmingly while fighting like cats and dogs when it comes to anything outside of that.

I don’t think I could understand just how someone could put that much work into something like Doujin though. I already struggle with updating this blog and having a job so the idea of taking on making Doujinshi seems ludicrous to me. I got anime and videos game the get through damn it! But man Hirotaka was the ultimate wingman on this and coming through on his promise to help her with it. Again outside of romance these two seem made for each other as each supports the others lacking areas. Though Hirotaka’s denseness did help him not notice that a guy selling BL manga gave quite the wrong impression to people. This episode does show the mangas age as we got people playing Mariokart on the Wii which is rather odd as they did show that Hirotaka owns a switch. Huh. Also Hiro’s stashing his porn at work cause he knew they might search the place was quite clever but what makes it quite odd is that he seems prefers big breasted women and he’s dating Narumi. In the same way that Narumi declared that Hiro wasn’t her type it seems that she isn’t his either. Yet they date despite that. Made all the stranger when the other couple seems to be both their types. I guess you could say that when it comes to love, personal preference isn’t really a factor and I suppose what attracts these two isn’t their looks but the actual personality behind them. Which is rather romantic when you think about it.

Legend of the Galactic Heroes Die Neue These – 4[The Unbeatable Magician]

by AidanAK47, posted in Currently Watching:, Legend of the Galactic Heroes Die Neue These

With the previous episode we got the backstory of Reinhard and with episode and the next we are getting the backstory of Yang. I know it’s likely a rather typical response to the “Who is my favorite character from LOGH?” but I really do love Yang. This episode actually did a better job of introducing him than the previous series did as before his past was relegated to a prequel series made afterwards. The pacing was a bit fast but otherwise this does a great job of setting up Yangs character. Yang is a man who wants to study history but finds himself more often than not forced to make it. Almost a polar opposite of Reinhard, he isn’t an overachiever and is lazy to a fault while only harboring the ambition to use the military as a means to obtain a paycheck so he can study history. Yet because he’s such a history buff he has a gift for tactical strategy which unfortunately pushes him up the ranks and some serious bad luck. For example she was positioned in the military at El Facil in this episode and found himself in lead command after the army abandoned the people. Though his wit he managed to use the escaping army as a decoy and evacuated the population. Now this event was still a big loss for the Free Planets Alliance but to divert attention away from that they focused public attention on Yangs evacuation and thus he was propelled to the status of the Hero of El Facil.

Honestly I love his demeanor of calm easy going mood even during the most dire of situations while still being rather socially awkward. This episode mainly set up his love for history and his friendship with Jessaia and Jean. I particularly liked how Yang tended to support Jean in pursuing Jessica romantically while signifying that he too may harbor romantic feelings for her. If there was certainly something I adored from the OVA series it was Yangs speeches on history and in this episode his opinion(Or rather his dad’s opinion) on Rudolf is oddly chilling. “People supported him…because they wanted their lives to be easy”, “Rather than solving their problems on their own, they were waiting for some superhero or saint to show up and take it all on single handedly. Rudolf took advantage of that”…my friends do these words seem oddly relevant? For these are lines taken word from word from a novel written in the 1980’s. Thus much like Yangs opinion on strategy, If one knows the past then it makes you better at predicting the future.

Now I have heard complaints that the strategy in this series is somewhat dependent on rather obvious tactics made brilliant by the incompetence of the opponent and I do see where that is coming from. It was rather odd that the best student in the school had the basic strategy of fighting Yang head on without considering to defend his supply lines. However while I admit the tactics of this show are a bit basic, I have two points which I feel negates that somewhat. One is that this series isn’t really about the space battles themselves but rather the politics around them so high level strategy isn’t so much needed when it’s the outcome of the battle on the political landscape which matters to the overall plot. The second point is that there is some claim that the author based these battles on real historical battles which I too suspected so. As I stated previously, stupid people in high positions is quite the common theme within history, you would be rather shocked how often it comes up. So I find the idea of Yang and Reinhard facing incompetent commanders to be at least fairly feasible. As a final note, the last episode showed us that the Galactic Empire has is dark sides to it’s society and this episode does give a glimpse that the Free Planets Alliance has its fair share of darkness too. While less constrictive that the Empire and closer to our current society, there is mention of a war orphans provision which basically amounts to soldiers being able to raise orphans and have a loan lent out by the Government. Then when the kid turns 15 they can veto the payback of the loan by joining the military. Essentially grooming war orphans into future soldiers. A democracy the Free Planets Alliance may be, but it is one that makes becoming a soldier the most attractive and in some cases, only option.

Full Metal Panic Invisible Victory – 02[Damage Control]

by AidanAK47, posted in Currently Watching:, Full Metal Panic Invisible Victory

A long awaited return of an old favorite is quite enough to make me smile but this episode makes it clear that this will not be the same happy go lucky FMP of the past. The light hearted shenanigans of the old series are pretty much gone now with Kaname coming to grips with several things that she has been ignoring to this point. That her status as whispered puts everyone around her in danger, that her normal life has officially ended and that the boy that she smacked on the head with a paper fan is in fact a killer. This new direction could be a turn off for some but I personally welcome it, even though it wasn’t clearly planned to be as such, it’s like FMP matured with the audience that watched it so long ago thus it decided to push for a more mature tone. Seeing Kaname get freaked out over Sousuke ignoring injured pedestrians and even smiling over enemy soldiers getting mowed down with gunfire felt like something a long time coming. Because Sousuke’s military nature was always played for laughs and she got desensitized to it but now that she’s right in the thick of it she truly understands that for all his eccentricity, Sousuke truly has killed a lot of people, some of which being innocent people.

Naturally I will have to bring up that rather awkward chase scene. Xebec so far has been doing a pretty good job, not KyoAni level but they do at least seem to be aiming for that level of quality. Naturally compromises have to be made like the CGI mecha but I personally don’t mind that as the mecha have looked pretty good for the most part. I understand that this series is likely a demanding one as far as action goes and this will be action heavy season yet. But that chase scene was just…terrible looking. Like on the level of PS2 gameplay. The cars felt floaty and the background was full CGI that didn’t feel convincing in the slightest. It’s my hope they fix this for the Blu-Ray release because the scene itself was fine, great even. But it just didn’t look right as all, nearly on the level of the CGI Bears of Golden Kamuy.

Tessa also has her moments here as the series goes to lengths to show us that she is the leader of Mythril for a reason. I will say the means of doing so was rather contrived, namely through a random soldier suddenly proposing mutiny against her and Tessa conventently showing up to put him in his place. Indeed it was a forced circumstance but nonetheless it achieved the goal of making Tessa look good. Basically with her declaring that she would kill any traitor without hesitation personally and reminding them that this isn’t some Tessa fan club but a military organisation. You can argue her methods are extreme and the threat was an empty one at best but it still is a badass moment for Tessa. She even reenacted the “Say my name” scene from Breaking Bad…about eight years before Breaking Bad did it. Huh…wonder if this is were they got the idea…likely not. So shit has hit the fan for Mythril and now it looks like even Sousukes classmates may come to know the truth about him. With the fun and games behind us, where will FMP go?

Darling in the Franxx – 15[Jian]

by AidanAK47, posted in Currently Watching:, Darling in the Franxx

Alright Franxx, you are forgiven for episode 14 and thank god this whole mess was sorted out relatively fast. I was truly prepared for this to drag on for several episodes but looks like they had the sense to cut it short and give the audience what it wants. So we get an animation extravaganza with a grand battle against what looks to be Klax headquarters. So it’s actually understandable why the previous episode felt a bit forced, they needed to split these two so that they could get the real fireworks ready for a full reunion and confession. Honestly I don’t think that aspect was handled well as the breakup just made everyone look bad with how sudden it was. The resolution does make for a bombastic spectacle but the means to get to it was clunky.

Goro wins the best character of the episode award for seeing Ichigo once again be ready to block HIro from getting to Zero Two and making the best call for the situation. So much so that I wonder just why Ichigo is squad leader when Goro is clearly more qualified for the position. When this episode was about to go down a long and annoying road Goro stepped in and decided to put a stop to it. And thanks to Hiro riding with Ichigo she was able to see that she pretty much didn’t have a hope in hell with him, finally allowing her to get over her crush and make the right call. Albeit with a little bit of a sore loser attitude. Thus does Hiro and Zero Two do what any couple should do regarding a misunderstanding like this and talk. Cue emotional confessions, crying, kissing and a metaphoral representation of what sounded like really good sex.

So as we can see the major character conflicts have been resolved, Ichigo has given up on Hiro(Or at least I hope she has by this point), the team have worked out their differences and Hiro and Zero Two are together again fully embracing their love for one another. By all accounts you would think this is where the series would end and yet we still got nine more episodes to go. So here’s my take, throughout the series Franxx has been teasing a dark turn of storytelling, several hints have been dropped to that effect for in this episode alone we have the higher ups suicide bombing both pilots and adults for their own agenda and the human like cocoon that dropped out of a Klax core.(Klax being humans is a rather predictable turn of events but hey it could lead to some good story development.) If there was any point where Darling in the Franxx would shift to a darker toned story then this would undoubtedly be it.

We got confirmation of a new threat but with Strelizia’s new upgrade in power I see this going either the way of Gurren Lagann whether the threat gets massively overpowered and needs the power of love to upgrade everyone to defeat it or we are going to go the road of Evangelion where in the challenges become more mental and the organisations cruelty and hidden agendas comes to light. As far as the adults are concerned, I previously stated that I don’t care and I still don’t. The thing that carries this show and keeps me coming back is the characters so my primary focus is just how much this change of tone is going to affect them. Considering episode 14 I fear they may botch it but making developments purposefully infruitating. Still I am interesting in just where this is going, sadly though we won’t get to see this next Saturday as likely to recover from the animation explosion that was this episode, no Franxx episode will air. Instead we got to wait an extra week for the next episode. I don’t mind leaving it at this for now but truly were is this going to go once things start up again?

Wotaku ni Koi wa Muzukashii – 02[Are We Now Dating?]

by AidanAK47, posted in Currently Watching:, Wotaku ni Koi wa Muzukashii

After a strong first episode I come back to this show and find a rather middling second episode. There is some good content here, namely the Evangelion references, one of which was butchered by the crunchyroll translators.(Narumi and Hanako were arguing over who was best girl in Evangelion with notes over their head about whose team they were on. The order being Narumi on team Rei, Hanako on Team Asuka, Taro on team Mari and Hirotaka picking Unit 01 as best girl) But the anime original scenes which were a boon to the first episode have become rather problematic. Case in point, this episode starts with three minutes of Hirotaka waking up, going to the kitchen to play games, attempt to make coffee, realize he’s out of coffee and travels to work sleep deprived.

That scene was too long and while I can certainly relate to going to work sleep deprived due to late night gaming, nothing happens here. It’s more or less filler and I don’t understand why they are dragging out the runtime like this. It could be due to the short number of chapters that they are attempting to pad out the runtime which could be quite problematic. Seeing scenes of characters talking their preferences in manga and whatnot is fine as I enjoy the interaction but it more the other scenes that feel supplementary that bug me. The actual scenes from the manga where pretty good, I got a chuckle out of Hirotaka saying to Narumi that he shouldn’t have told her that he liked her only to realize that he didn’t actually tell her that when asking her out.

I do still quite enjoy the banter though at times it was trying a little too hard for comedy. The animation seems to have gotten rather bare as well and while a show like this doesn’t necessarily need godly animation, it is good for the subtle motion which give these characters life. What this episode basically established is that the other two coworkers also happen to be going out and are big otaku’s as well. Rather coincidental for them all to meet at the same workplace while happening to work in the same room but hey I will bite. Again the general scenes were fine but it felt there were too many moments of nothing happening on screen. I enjoy the characters enough for this episode to be fine instead of boring but going forward we need more content in here. At least so I have something to actually talk about on these episode reviews.

Legend of the Galactic Heroes Die Neue These – 2/3[The Battle of Astarte/An Indomitable Prodigy]

by AidanAK47, posted in Legend of the Galactic Heroes Die Neue These

If I was to judge this adaption based solely on the first three episodes I would declare it a resounding success. For while I do really like the old series, it does have a rather slow start. I say i only truly got invested in it around episode 3 or 4 when the more political side of the story surfaced. However the remake here has managed to spice up the space battles with new effects and the presentation of the story is better. The first episode introduced us to only one side of the conflict, thus not overburdening the viewer by jumping around between two vastly different sides with a whole host of characters. Then the second episode introduced the other side which provided a nice transition between the differences in command and a solid introduction to our two leads with vastly different combat styles. I would berate this series for having stupid commanders who ignore their subordinates good suggestions and continue being utterly arrogant…but actual history does seem to have a recurring theme of having really stupid people in high positions screwing things up. I at least appreciate that the commander handed the reins over to Yang once he was taken out of the picture and acknowledged that he was the only man who could get them out of this. It shows that even if he was prideful and idiotic for ignoring Yangs suggestions, he still was a good person. I admit I found it quite humorous for Yang to turn the battle into a game of chasing tails only for Reinhard to retreat cause he hated how dumb the battle had become.

Our story here has a large scope but generally it jumps between two viewpoints. That of Reinhard and that of Yang. The third episode focused on Reinhard first and when watched the old series I found that I much prefer Yangs viewpoint over Reinhards. Mostly because the situation Yang was dealing with was more interesting and Yang overall was a far more interesting protagonist. Reinhard has his draw but I just didn’t quite find his personality as charming. So it really is a merit of the old series to get me to be engaged with parts of the story I once found my attention wander with. True this could be a product of foreknowledge and since I know what happens I have become more engaged in how the plot reaches that point. But I do feel like the presentation here is really working to keep people immersed. Of course that does not mean that this is top tier animation as during talking scenes it can be the bare essentials but even then we got subtle face movements. The animation of the old series was quite basic so from a animation standpoint there wasn’t much to look at. Here there is greater polish to the scenes which I feel really nails down getting the main points across to the viewer. By episodes end you know Reinhard’s ambition, why he wants to do it and his friendship with Kircheis. As well as the general social structure of the empire which to boil it down, would likely be the result if Hitler won WWII. The old series will always be relevant for having for details but I felt this new series could make for a good compromise for those not willing to watch 110 episodes of content. I even get a better sense for Kircheis’s and Reinhards friendship as in the old series I was never was quite sold on their friendship. To me it felt like more of a master and servant association which Kircheis put up with cause he wanted to bang Annerose. Not saying he doesn’t want the same thing here but at least you can get a sense that he is following Reinhard for more than just Annerose.

I like the opening of this series as it’s a rather different kind of opening from what we usually get, being a ballad instead of forgettable Jpop. But as the chorus of the song played I couldn’t help getting nostalgic as something sounded very similar. I had to rack my brain just to remember it but I finally found out why. The reason is that the chorus of this song is a blatant ripoff of the 1987 hit by Starship “Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now”. I don’t know if it was intentional or purely coincidental but the two songs are near identail when it comes to the chorus. Truth be told I am not sure if I care though as the song sounds good, I just hope it’s more an intentional homage than lazy composition. Truly if I were to fault this series for something it would be the character designs and yes I believe this will be something I will harp on about throughout the series. Some of the designs I can get behind but I rather dislike how it makes everyone look so much younger. Even old characters feel like they have perfect skin and were varnished to a mirror sheen. The reason this is a big issue for me is that the greatest victim of these designs is Yang Wenli as in the old series he felt like a middle aged veteran and thus when he starts talking history or strategy, it felt like it was coming from someone experienced with life. With his HD makeover he still sounds smart but he lost an important characteristic of his manner. It could be just my fondness for his old design but I really did like the way that Yang was like a tired middle aged man who was sick of the worlds crap and just trying to make the best out of a rather terrible situation he was forced into.