Author: AidanAK47

Re:Zero -Starting Life in Another World – 09

by AidanAK47, posted in Currently Watching:, Re:Zero -Starting Life in Another World

This week I happened to see the result of delaying the release of Re:Zero on a certain message board. It was pure pandemonium as there were those too lazy to google demanding the next episode, trolls trying to convince people the episode was delayed to next week with fake screenshots of twitter posts, haters and generally a cluster of utter idiocy that the internet can only provide. All this chaos over tennis delaying the episode. Guess I can say Re:Zero essentially is the most popular series of the season. Considering with popularity comes a cancerous fan base that fills me with unease, even the best of games or shows can be devalued by the overly loud fan base placing it on a pedestal. I worry because I actually really like this show and that delay killed me just as much as anyone else. Through this show still has it’s flaws it still manages to give me the giddy feeling every time an episode comes out. One of the flaws I consider is that I found it a bit odd when Subaru started listing out the children’s dreams to motivate Rem to help him. I get why he was doing it but it came out of nowhere. It is also made a bit awkward when he had to give another speech yet again to convince her to let him look for the last kid in the forest. Having two motivational speeches right by one another is a bit disconcerting. Subaru’s meta-isms can still be annoying at times and the characters do need a little bit more development.

The culprit behind the death of Subaru in the first run has been determined. And it’s….the dog with the shifty eyes! Well when you put it like that it sounds rather silly but taking into account the foreshadowing….well it’s still quite silly. My guess is the dog is the familiar of a mage(Like Puck is to Emilia.) likely related to the organisation who tried to steal Emilia’s emblem. Considering the focus on killing off Subaru this could be a result of the grudge Elsa has againest Subaru for messing up her plans. I don’t think this is an independent incident considering the timing and the way one kid was removed from the group specifically to lure Subaru out alone. Even the little girl Subaru rescues is the one who lead him to the curse puppy in the first place. Perhaps the girl is the perpetrator? I didn’t see a bite on her for one thing. This happens to be the only time Roswell left the Mansion, by flight which does suggest he’s quite a badass, and I have a firm suspicion that he was made to leave the mansion on purpose. The timing of the attack on the kids and him leaving was far too coincidental. My guess is that the shaman found out that Subaru forced Betrix to dispel the curse and resorted to measures to lure Subaru to the forest. Taking Roswell out of the equation so he couldn’t turn the tide against the Ma-beasts. Still Rem managed to put up one hell of a fight and she’s quite the berserker. Seems she’s an Oni which the subtitles have translated as demon but Oni fits better considering. I get the feeling that the tale Subaru told of the red and blue Oni has more relevance to them than previously suspected. Perhaps Ram made a deal to turn human in order to get closer to humans and it backfired on her maybe?

The second half of the episode where Subaru and Rem venture into the forest to rescue the kids was some truly tense and excellent sequence. For this part of the show had something not a lot of anime have. That is genuine stakes for the viewer and characters. In many a series it tries to fool you that characters can die. However in many cases that is simply an illusion and the viewer knows the characters are not in any true danger. Because they are the heroes and the heroes can’t die until the story concludes. Of course some characters can die on special occasions but it a fairly rare occurrence. However in Re:Zero, Subaru and anyone can die at any given moment. Sure that only means that Subaru returns to the starting point but the show has made it a point to give Subaru’s deaths gravitas. For Subaru this means a horrible death and resetting to the beginning. This loss is also felt by the viewer because all the development and efforts Subaru made to get closer to people disappear. When watching this episode I was fairly certain Subaru was going to die, but I didn’t want him to die. For if he dies that means the Rem and Ram who softened up to him die with him. I will never see the result of the promise he made to Rem or how she will see him after this event. I never knew for certain if Subaru would die this time or live and watching the last few minutes had me on the edge of my seat as the show gave me false death flags and raised my hopes as Subaru escaped near death. That’s what I call damn fine entertainment. I do applaud the animators and direction during these scenes. While there are still shortcuts being taken, the music and direction more than make up for it. In particular that piano piece that played during Rem’s transformation was downright perfect and while I truly don’t have linguistic knowledge to give the japanese acting a fair assessment, I can really feel some strong emotion in the performance.Maybe I have been spoiled by the likes of One Punch Man and Fate but I am more sensitive to shortcuts in animation when regarding fight scenes. However what fight scenes that are there are quite excellent. Overall White fox has kept a high level of animation consistency throughout the series and I hope they keep it up.

~AidanAK47~

Kiznaiver – 08

by AidanAK47, posted in Currently Watching:, Kiznaiver

In my last post I assumed that this episode would be about Tenga as the episodes title seems to suggest but it turned out to be more an episode about Agata than anything else. It basically confirmed my previous assumptions about Agata and Noriko being involved with the previous Kiznaiver project when they were children and the episode ends, at a rather inconvenient time, when Agata realises who Noriko is and regains his memories. The end of the episode was certainly the best part for me as it was done marvelously but I do feel bad for Chidori as she’s outright ignored while confessing. I am not sure what triggered Agata’s flashback to the past and cause him to start running to Noriko. The last scene was a little unclear on just how he got to her. It seems to suggest that he ran from the front door to the courtyard and pushed Noriko out of the way of a falling statue.. As for the reason why he ran to Noriko, I like to believe that he and her are still connected to each other because of the last Kiznaiver experiment. But there may be more meaning behind what Noriko said at the end about Agata being inside herself. Chances are it’s simply her mentioning that they knew each other in the past as she theorised in the first episode about wanting to see yourself in others. However to go off the rails a bit, what if she was saying that when the Kiznaiver project ended, her and Agata’s personalities somehow got switched? It would be rather interesting if the reason Agata changed was because he had his traits switched with Noriko and in turn Noriko inherited his. After all, Noriko despite her appearance is very confident and brash whereas Agata became more shy and reserved. Seeing Agata in the past this could suggest that his consciousness may have swapped with Noriko’s. It’s unlikely but I would find it quite fascinating if that was the case.

It’s truly a fourth wall breaker when characters within the show start shipping characters together. For the most part the pairings are as you would expect except for one. To some this may not be as much of a surprise but to me I found it was something that came out of nowhere. Namely that Niko has feelings for Tenga. Now when I heard this I assumed this was just the project managers making a mistake but the rest of the episode seems to suggest the same thing. As far as I can tell, there have only been three signs that indicated this development. One, when Tenga groped her in the first episode. Two, when Niko was pouting over Tenga lavishing attention on Chidori. And three, when he patted her on the head in the last episode. Other than that this seems as out of the blue as that romance between Hulk and Black Widow that nobody should have wanted.(I see absolutely no reason why people thought they would be interested in each other in the first place.) I see more evidence to suggest that Niko likes Maki rather than Tenga. I don’t really like what this brings as we now have a long line of crushes which might lead to unnecessary drama later on. Niko likes Tenga, Tenga likes Chidori, Chidori likes Agata, Agata likes Noriko and nobodies with who they want to be with. Before I felt like this whole thing could work out as Noriko and Agata seems pretty mutual and Chidori’s feelings for Agata feel more like the remnants of a crush rather than genuine love. Things could have easily been resolved in a nice little bow but now we have a third wheel to the party. Oh Niko, if Chidori’s love is doomed to set sail, yours is doomed before it can even be built. If Niko manages to get together with Tenga then by all means I will be very surprised but as far as I am concerned I say the only thing that awaits her is a jealous hissy fit and a forever alone. I certainly don’t want that to happen to her but really it’s the usual fate for these types. What makes me not in favor of this development is that it sucks the fun out of Niko and then she could fall to the fate of many a comedic character that falls in love. They get too serious and stop being fun.

We have gone over the halfway point of the season and what concerns me is that I still don’t really know what Kiznaiver is striving for. Certainly things have happened over the past 8 episodes but if feels disjointed and unorganised. When looking it over I fail to see a connecting narrative, instead a series a events with no defined goal or purpose. For example, we had an entire episode devoted to Hazama and yet after that he has had no real purpose within the narrative. It’s possible they might start using him for something like here to rile up the Kiznaivers but I fail to see the purpose of devoting an episode to him joining when he could have just been in the group from the start. The only thing that seems to have dominant narrative purpose is romance which I think is a poor use of the setup. The sharing pain aspect hasn’t had much of a definitive purpose besides giving them a reason to interact with one another. While I do not consider the past episodes bad it does feel rather directionless. I think if this continues I will look back on the series and find that it didn’t really feel like anything happened.

~AidanAK47~

Lucid9: Inciting Incident Video Game Review – 85/100

by AidanAK47, posted in Anime Reviews, Game Reviews, Reviews by AidanAK47

It’s not often I pick a game up without prior knowledge. I abhor the act of pre-ordering and at least do a google search on the title to get a general idea of it’s overall quality. Gone are the day you walk into a game store and buy something purely on a whim or the box art. With the internet you can at least get an idea for what you are in for. Lucid9 is one of the few I pick up out of curiosity, partly due to the few steam reviews present were very positive and the fact that it’s a free game. I knew nothing regarding what it was about and my only previous contact with it is a vague recollection on a Fuwanovel blog post. So I thought that it’s been awhile since I played a genuine visual novel and I was itching for something different. This is the first part called inciting Incident of a series of visual novels planned however despite that the story in this is more or less conclusive despite a pretty big cliffhanger for a sequel. At least the mystery for this game is solved with just a few hints of behind the scenes manipulation to be addressed in later chapters. Besides the pretty big turn of events at the stories end you could leave off this one content. Provided you stop before the last scene. But anyway enough baiting, lets us move on to the review.

For the unintroduced, Lucid9 is a visual novel and no, that is not the same thing as an eroge or dating sim. An eroge is like a visual novel but features a stronger focus on pornography. Often you can tell the difference between the two by the game’s title or synopsis. While visual novels do feature hentai content, it’s much lesser than an eroges content. In many new titles it’s getting phased out completely. A dating sim is more of a game where the objective is to raise girls affection for you and improve stats which are normally not present in visual novels. The best way to describe a visual novel is that it is like a choose your own adventure book. You go through a story and are presented choices which can lead the story on a different path. Most of the time the paths are decided by which girl in the narrative you show most interest in and the route you take often has them as the main heroine. Today’s visual novel is an exception to that as their is only one route and the choices you make don’t have much of an impact on the overall narrative. I will also point out that this visual novel doesn’t have any hentai within it’s narrative. The story involves a series of disappearances that are happening at an high class academy which are the work of a serial killer. Our protagonist is a cynical snark mouthed student who attends the school and manages to get caught up in the case. He’s recruited by a private investigator as an assistant and the case begins to affect those around him. Slowly he finds that he has a growing talent for investigation and detective work. Admittedly the murderers aren’t put on full focus here as the story mainly is concerned with the development of the main character and how this helps him get over his own issues to finally put effort into doing something with his life. For a free VN I was surprised at the quality of writing, this author really excels at writing back and forth dialogue though it can make the characters too quipy at times. The story is really carried by the interactions between characters and it does manage to keep things interesting.
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Joker Game – 08

by AidanAK47, posted in Currently Watching:, Joker Game

Well Joker Game managed to pull a twist I didn’t see coming and what makes it rather amusing is that it did it unintentionally. For you see it took the entire episode for me to figure out that I wasn’t watching the antics of another spy of the D-agency only to figure out that this was in fact another spy from another spy agency. The wind agency who have a motto completely opposite of that of the D-agency. We now have an arch enemies for our team, whom are willing to go to any length to accomplish a mission. be it using blackmail or murder. So to put it simply, wind agencies spies act more like actual damn spies. I did think that for once it looked like D-agencies spies were being spies for once only to have the rug pulled under me and have him to be revealed to be an evil spy. This sure makes the D-agency a massive bunch of hypocrites in the first episode when they laughed off  Sakuma’s honor code in the first episode. I guess we are supposed to cheer for the D-agency for being morally upright spies and boo the evil wind agency spies who resort to any means necessary to get the job done. It’s all black and white, even though by nature a spies job is morally grey the writer resorts to this simple clash of good and evil with no middle ground.

The story this week is simple. The spy needs to find evidence to implicate a British diplomat is involved with the military and passing on information. However he hasn’t made any communication whatsoever and it’s looking that he’s in the clear. The spy of the week decides to blackmail the butler into drugging the guards and letting him in to investigate the safe. After investigating we see another example of Joker games immensely poor writing as he somehow figures out that the man has been sending out messages through a hollowed out umbrella his wife takes with her when going out. All because of a relatively normal comment about asking her to take the umbrella he bought her with her. This isn’t the stop of the silliness as when the man and his wife come down to investigate at the moment they turn the door handle our spy somehow stuff the documents back in the safe, replaces the painting and gets outside the house. Um…somehow.It really wasn’t made clear just how he managed to get outside. It just shown him in the house one minute and then bam! He Houdini’s outside. All while checking the umbrella on the way I suppose. If Joker Game expects me to take it seriously then it really needs to stop pulling stuff like this. Spies are not Batman and only Batman could pull off such a feat without question. Speaking of which another thing was brought up this episode which is equally ridiculously. Namely that the spies of D-agency were trained for only a year. Due to my habit of skipping openings after seeing them once I happened to forget that detail but now having seen the superhuman level of the D-agents I must point out just how absurd that is.

A year ladies and gents. A year to turn ordinary human beings into perfect people who know everything about every and the deductive reasoning of Sherlock Holmes with the power of precognition. In a year a single man managed to teach a number of people the kind of skills that would require several year college course just to learn one of these subjects. This guy should give up the spy business and just go into teaching kindergartners. After a year those kids would have the knowledge of a college professor. Perhaps I should have seen the danger signs of the writing sooner. The presentation remains insultingly simple as the man comments about him not letting his guard down and very obviously shifts his eyes to look at the safe hidden behind a painting. A stranger tries to spy on the man by standing outside looking in through the gateway because that’s how you can learn information. By being completely obvious. Meanwhile super spy uses his magic eagle vision to spot that the man doesn’t have a tan on his head from across the garden on the second floor. Thus he must be a military policeman as that requires a hat for the job. And not say a construction worker, firefighter or postman. Maybe the guy fell asleep while tanning with a towel on his forehead? Quite honestly I am just losing all interest having made it this far into the series. This should be a turning point for the show as we now have a main antagonist but the only thing I am concerned about is whether I will be able to tell whose on which side.

~AidanAK47~

Re:Zero -Starting Life in Another World – 08

by AidanAK47, posted in Re:Zero -Starting Life in Another World

I feel bad for the artists and animators who made the opening and ending for this show as they don’t seem to be getting much use. Not that I am complaining of course as if the choice is between a catchy theme song and more content then content wins every time. Though it is a little bit of a pity as the opening and ending for this show are pretty good. I am fond of the way they made the opening loop as how it starts and ends is the same. This week acts as a calm before the storm and manages to address what is a normal flaw regarding anime stories in general. For you see often in a anime when a character’s trauma is brought up and addressed, that’s the end of it. Sure the protagonist may angst over a new problem but when they break out everything tends to go their way and it’s just doesn’t bother them anymore. The character breaks out of his angst and faces adversity with no problem. Re:Zero looked to be continuing this trend with Subaru regaining his will to fight and jumping off a cliff. The beginning half certainly makes it feel like Subaru has gotten over it but then we notice that Subaru is a bit too upbeat. His meta humor goes up to rather annoying levels and he is clearly exerting himself. For you see while anime may state otherwise, healing from trauma is a gradual process and you don’t suddenly feel all better because someone gives you a pep talk. Subaru here tried way too hard and everyone noticed that. With Ram and Rem it made him all the more suspicious. WIth Emilia it made her worried. It’s clear that Subaru is still traumatised by his previous repeats as evidenced when Puck casts a shadow spell over him, which blocks his sight and sound. The level of panic Subaru exhibits truly shows that he isn’t over anything as the state is very similar of his nightmares. So Emilia laid him down on her lap and got him to let it all out which leads to a pretty powerful scene. This is one of those things I find interesting about Emilia, in that while Subaru seeks a romantic relationship with her, her relationship with him almost seems motherly. One could debate that her level of affection for him is a little strange considering how long they have known each other and I do sort of agree with that. Though what I mention later here could be a result of that.

We learn quite a bit about magic this time around and that Subaru’s affinity is with shadow magic. Does that mean he’s going to end up a badass necromancer in the future, um…no. Shadow magic looks to be a unimpressive kind and Subaru looks to have no real talent in controlling it. I approve this development as what makes Subaru’s tale compelling is that he is a normal human. If he suddenly gains superpowers that would make him less relatable and his struggles less compelling. There’s also more detail on the Jealous witch and I find myself most intrigued by it. More and more it looks to be the Jealous witch who gave Subaru his power and brought him to the land. So it goes that there were seven witches who represented the seven sins. However the Witch who represented envy devoured the powers of the others and drained half the world of magic. Some have said that the translation of “Jealous Witch” is an incorrect one as due to her status of representing a sin it would be better to refer to her as the witch of envy. Personally though I prefer calling her the Jealous witch as it just sounds better to me. Besides Jealousy is often associated with envy so it’s not entirely incorrect. Beatrix lays down some interesting lines. The witch of envy desires love, she cannot understand human language and even all the dragons and heroes of the world couldn’t destroy her. This leads me to make a theory, one which Subaru briefly alludes to. For a moment Subaru considers that Emilia is the Jealous witch due to the info that the Jealous witches body is that of a half elf with white hair. This explains why Emilia is so concerned about her race when she reveals it to Subaru and Subaru writes off her introducing herself as Satella in the first run to make her seem suitable to the throne to those thinking she’s aiming for it. I however have another theory. I believe that Emilia is the jealous witch, however I think she isn’t actually aware of it herself.

The way the Jealous witch is talked about makes her seem like a spirit or some kind of ghostly creature and it’s possible the reason why she couldn’t be killed was simply because she can’t really die. For anytime a body is destroyed she would move to a new host. My guess is that Subaru was brought here to protect her from harm and most importantly, love her. As that’s what she desires most of all. For Emilia this doesn’t look to be something she’s doing on purpose and I believe the witch is working subconsciously to achieve this. Hence why Emilia is so attached to Subaru and seems at times to know what he’s going though, even on a vague level. Subaru made a big mistake this episode which could dig his grave later when he goes to replace a vase despite no one telling him where the spare vases were. He wrote this off as Ram telling him about it but I say they found it mighty suspicious. Roswell makes a curious comment to Ram about stopping her sister from acting out which suggested that Subaru’s death in the second run may have been her acting on her own instead of on orders. Though she seems to have lightened up to him after seeing him on Emilia’s lap. Both sister got rather playful with him at the end of the episode so this time around I think his death isn’t going to be by their hands. Instead it looks like the mysterious shaman is the one who’s going to kill him this time. Who that is is still up in the air but Subaru looks to have homed in on the cause being in the village due to Beatrix’s comment about a curse needing physical contact. But could this be the turn that Subaru manages to break out of the cycle? Honestly, I doubt it. If you happen to be itching for more Re:zero like myself, I recommend checking out the Break time specials. They are a pretty fun side dish to the main story that happens to include some material that didn’t make the original cut.

~AidanAK47~

Kiznaiver – 07

by AidanAK47, posted in Currently Watching:, Kiznaiver

To some this may be the strongest episode of Kiznaiver to date. However to someone like myself I find myself mixed on what I just witnessed. I have said before that what I like about this series are the aspects which are distinctly Trigger which would be it’s sense of wacky humor and character chemistry. However this episode didn’t feel like Trigger, no this felt like Okada. A particular fear I had for this series is that Okada was helmed as the writer and Okada is very fond of melodrama. Too fond I would say. People acting ignorant for the sake of heightening drama, characters launching into emotional outbursts over the most trivial of details, arguments in the rain and teenage angst. These things are distinctly Okada and perhaps because I happen to be rewatching an older work of hers, Toradora, this episode didn’t quite hit the emotional high it intended for me. This is the particular problem with soap opera drama, if it hits it’s mark it’s emotional and riveting. However if it misses it’s hackneyed and contrived. While I certainly am not saying this episode was a failure, I think it lost value from me because I am able to see the strings Okada is trying to pull. So Maki blames himself for her friends death because her friend was dying of a terminal disease and she pushed her away for fear of getting hurt before she died. I can certainly see why that would be upsetting but you really made it out to be a much greater issue before. It’s a little irritating when a character makes such a fuss over an mysterious trauma from their past only to have it be something so utterly minor. Everyone is making a big deal out of this and I find it a little distasteful. As to why, let me put it this way. This episode was about Maki and Makis feelings so nothing else really matters. I look back at the opening of this episode as Niko, very out of character starts telling Ruri’s parents to care about Maki’s feelings which while she is admonished for, is pretty much the attitude the episode takes. At the end of the episode Maki’s issues are resolved and she can move on from this to make new friends. Meanwhile Ruri’s parents are free to wallow in despair over the death of their daughter because they served their purpose in resolving Maki’s issues. For we all know that a friend you had for about a year or two is far more important than parents you knew you for your entire existence. So hey Ruri’s parents may destroy themselves out of grief over their daughter but who cares? Maki’s happy and that’s all that matters. You may understand now my particular lack of being emotionally moved by this character arc.

I do like what is presented here though as Maki and Ruri’s relationship is an interesting one. They bonded by combining their talents to create a manga and over the time became so close that it potentially could have become romantic. Maki makes it clear that she stopped herself before she reached that point but not because she didn’t swing that way. Rather because she didn’t want to be devastated by her lover dying on her. I find it nice that the relationship between them isn’t really sexualised which it could have very well been considering this is trigger and that had no issues doing Yuri fanservice before in KIll la Kill. Rather just their feelings lining up and maki pushing her away once Ruri made a big advance on her. In regards to this it’s difficult to determine whether Maki is gay or bisexual as her feelings for Ruri definitely insinuate that she was romantically interested. As for the rest of the Kiznaiver they seem preoccupied with finding out about Maki behind her back and decide to become her friend in order to solve her issues. Yuta ultimately ends up the main savior her as he lets her know that Ruri wrote a different final chapter to the one she proposed to Maki. One that effectively showed she had no hard feelings about what she did. For some reason they all play in the water because Maki suggests it and I am a little confused on what Maki was trying to accomplish. It seemed to say that she was looking for inspiration to write a new manga chapter but honestly I say it was a flimsy excuse for an emotional scene. That said it’s a pretty heartwarming scene as all the character run into the water and start messing around. I also just realised that Yuta runs like a girl, I just find that immensely amusing considering his front he put up. Then we have Maki admit to her feelings and decide that the other Kiznaivers are closer than friends to her. Honestly I am more interested in how she will conduct herself from now on as her mysterious emotional baggage is cleared up. Perhaps will she develop feelings for Yuta, or in a strange twist of fate become attracted to Niko? Either way it looks like we will be moving on from Maki and dealing with Tenga next time around where he’s likely going to bring up feelings for Chidori. He’s got a pretty big chance too seeing how much she blushed when he was going around topless.

~AidanAK47~

Joker Game – 07

by AidanAK47, posted in Currently Watching:, Joker Game

You know, I am beginning to wonder just how do those lessons go at the D-Agency. Is it something like “Ok, class. Today I will teach you how to summon dolphins with a whistle. After that we will go over the magic rituals of Aleister Crowley and finally have a refresher on the finer points of Capoeira.”? Because it’s just becoming utterly absurd with how many talents these agents have. The first episode gave the impression that these men would primarily be remaining undercover for the rest of their lives so for what possible reason would you give them such a ridiculously extensive curriculum? Well for today’s episode I feel that Joker game is really starting to waste my time as this feels very much like a rehash of the last episode. Except instead of a train, we have a boat. Instead of a informant we have someone trying to sneak into the country. And instead of letting the murderer get away this time he gives them over to the authorities. Other than that we have essentially watched the same story beats of the last episode. The only major difference here is that it looks as though the D-agency spy plans to take care of the woman’s daughter and dog. Perhaps he plans to take her back to japan with him and she will end up treating the D-agents as surrogate father figures and learn spy talents from them. Frankly that sounds far more interesting than our current story. The things that caught my interest were related to the enigma machine and the motive for the MI6 agent is that he purposefully sacrificed a ship by leaking intel in order to use it to help decode the enigma code. Which is worthless because the machine is set up in such a manner that even if you could use that to decode the message it would only be worthwhile till the end of the day. Once the day ends, Germany changes the machines settings and anything you decoded is completely moot. That’s what made the machine such a monster in the first place as the effort required to decode the machines settings would take more time than a day. At most this man’s plan would give them a little headstart on decoding but unless he plans to sell out a ship every single day that plan is just not cost effective. It would be broken by a man called Alan Turing(Though I hear a mathematician called Gordon Welchman helped out) who essentially had to design a machine of what could be considered part the basis of the modern computer programing to figure it out. However I am not a historian so don’t take my word on that.

I may be going off tangent more than usual but if this show plans to repeat itself then I certainly see no reason to do the same. But as it continues I notice the writing is getting lazier and more nonsensical. For example, It’s revealed that the murderer shouted to her dog in the beginning because the dog was getting close to the british spy she was deemed to kill. The reason why she panicked about this is because she keeps a photo of her husband and the man in the dog’s collar…wait what?! Why? For what reason would you put a photo in a dog’s collar and what made you think the man would find it if the dog came up to him? Personally I would consider it a much bigger problem that you drew attention to yourself because the man should know who you are! He attended your husband’s funeral and talked to you directly! You didn’t wear any disguise or even bother to put down a false name. And you are worried about the dog giving you away? If I was the man I would be wondering why the wife of a British solider I doomed to death just so happened to be on my escape ship. You could argue that maybe he doesn’t remember her because it happened a long time ago but based on the little girls age it’s a few months at best! Of course mister super spy happens to figure out she’s the one that did it because the victim mentioned Cerberus, Cerberus is a hound that guards the underworld, this woman has a dog…of course! Well he happened to know the name of the woman’s husband and looked up her name in the ship manifest but still. Lets not forget the two MI6 spies discussing top secret information at the top of their lungs that’s related to the widow’s husband. Real smart guys. Our episode ends with the murderess leaving her child in the hands of the man she has had a maximum of two conversations with and knows absolutely nothing about. The end result here is the same as all the other episodes up to this point, the D-agents show everyone how amazing they are though the power of knowing the shows script. If I wasn’t blogging this show I would consider this the dropping point as if Joker Game does have some greater story in the future I say it’s come too little too late. It gave the impression at the beginning that it would be presenting something of more class but has only settled for a poor power fantasy. I have lost all patience for it to become anything but.

~AidanAK47~

Re:Zero -Starting Life in Another World – 07

by AidanAK47, posted in Currently Watching:, Re:Zero -Starting Life in Another World

A certain criticism has loomed over this series from its very inception. As the series continued people have asked the question “How can Subaru brush off his horrific deaths so easily?” Today we have the answer to that question and that answer is that he doesn’t. It’s been building incognito in the background all this time but finally Subaru’s deaths have begun to affect him. And it hit him hard. The Subaru of this episode was a fairly broken guy who has little of the happy go lucky meta humor of before. This actually proves that his meta jabs are a kind of coping mechanism so he can help bury his traumatic experiences. But those things are still there and we even see him having nightmares of his previous deaths. The straw that broke the camel’s back was likely Rem’s confession that both her and her sister were just pretending to be friendly with him which I say isn’t quite the truth. Maybe this time around as Subaru was more distant but I do think they were more genuine with him in previous loops. However they don’t remember those loops and that’s what truly destroys Subaru. To him Ram and Rem are people he’s known and bonded with over a month but to them he’s no more a stranger. The pure utter frustration just wells out as Subaru vents his despair at her despite knowing that she has no idea why. All before his throat is ripped out by an unseen attack later revealed to be Ram.

We have learned a number of things this episode. One is that the main reason Subaru is killed by Rem is because he has the smell of the Jealous Witch around him. This smell seems to be only perceivable by Beatrix and Rem, it angers Rem greatly because a group known as the witches cult did something unforgivable to Ram. This may be related to Ram’s ability to manipulate air which seems like really dangerous magic. Looks like there is one area Ram excels at better than Rem as she certainly is the most dangerous of the two. The smell seems to grow stronger with each loop which does explain why Rem only started killing him on the second loop but this could also be because of another thing we learn. As Emilia is confronting him, Subaru decides that he doesn’t have to go through the loops alone and is about to confide in Emilia. It makes sense as many in a time loop situation find someone who believe them and thus help escape the loop. Bill Murray had Andie MacDowell. Okabe and Kurisu. Though Homura is an exception. Just by having someone to listen can really help out victims of this particular scenario. However as it sadistically turns out, Subaru can’t tell anyone about his power. Anytime he attempts to, a hand will appear and threaten to kill him. It’s likely that it’s a clause of the curse he was given that should he tell anyone then he will die for real. So Subaru must bear the weight of his power alone which is unbelievably cruel. Why Subaru was given this power is still unknown but now we have a prime suspect of who gave him his power. The Jealous Witch, Satella.

This time around it looks like Subaru gets closer to Beatrix who sticks with him out of guilt at first but looks to have become attached to him. Due to Subaru making a deal with her to protect his life he then survives to the fourth day. But due to a strange turn of events, Rem dies of the same curse that killed Subaru. I truly applaud the voice actress of Ram for that wail of grief because that was soul shattering. By this we can be certain that the curse that killed Subaru in his sleep is not related to the sisters. But why did they target Rem instead of Subaru? It’s possible that the killer knew that Ram would in turn target Subaru because he’s the most suspicious person in the mansion but there is another aspect to this. For one, Rem originally went to town with Subaru in previous loops. One could assume that Rem went alone to town while Subaru holed himself up in the house. So could it be that something in the town hit them with a curse? I don’t want to suspect the dog bite as it’s a little too silly but it is the most suspect action that happened in the town. The mystery here is who is killing Subaru with that curse? Roswell looks to be out of the running as I don’t think he would kill his own servants. Beatrix looks to be in the clear as well so who is left. Honestly despite him having an alibi, my money’s on Puck. I get the feeling he’s not quite as fond of Subaru as he lets on and Beatrix did state that a death during sleep could be induced by either her or Puck. The only major problem with this is Puck’s time limit.

This episode’s finale is Subaru attempting to kill himself in order to fix things but finding that forcing your body to commit an act that goes against every biological functions instinct isn’t nearly as easy as fiction made it seem. Plus the fear that “Return by Death” won’t activate this time as there truly is no guarantee that it has unlimited uses. Even I question whether it will still work when Subaru kills himself instead of being killed by someone. As it seems that while having nightmares Rem and Ram held his hands and calmed him down. Thus he decides to save them both and return once more. Having found his resolve, Subaru manages to commit the most bravado suicide I have seen so far in anime. I would like to bring up how great it is that white fox sometimes cuts out the anime opening and ending to fit in more content. Normally that is a thing reserved for finales or opening episodes but here they have had a number of episodes were no Opening or ending played at all and instead we were just given new content. It really shows that White fox are putting real effort into this adaption and I certainly hope they can keep up the high level of quality. I can safely say this was the best episode of Re:Zero to date and I am solely waiting on the next episode. I just hope it doesn’t pass by as fast as this one did. That’s a truly annoying aspect of a great show. Time makes it feel so short.

~AidanAK47~

Kiznaiver- 06

by AidanAK47, posted in Currently Watching:, Kiznaiver

This week we have focus on the problems of a specific member of the Kiznaiver, that member being Maki.Well my assumption about Maki’s problem turned out to be incorrect though I did think compensated dating is a bit too serious for the tone of this show while proposing it. Her actual problem turned out to be a big surprise as she is really a fairly famous shoujo mangaka who co created a popular work with another girl who died. While it isn’t confirmed how she died, it’s suggested by the opening scene that she committed suicide in front of Maki. While the opening scene shows Maki stopping her from falling, the breakdown she has where she has a flashback back to that moment seems to suggest that she didn’t actually make it in time to stop her falling. Why she killed herself is up for debate but the content of the manga (unfulfilled love, bullying) does suggest that she was dealing with some major issues. Either way Maki’s claim that she killed someone is just as suspected and it looks like she’s just blaming herself for her friend’s death. This looks to be the first part of resolving her issues as she faces the problem of her editor pushing her to allow a documentary to be made of her. She has obvious reservations because of her co writers death and her desire to keep her status as a mangaka secret. I must say her emotional breakdown as she’s put on spot at school was truly excellent visually. The scream she lets out as her pain is conveyed to the others sent a shiver up my spine. Naturally it looks to be the power of friendship which will save Maki from her issues and help her come to terms to her friend’s death which is rather cliche but suitable. The documentary staff were acting pretty antagonistic though which I found too blatant. It’s clear they were meant to play the role of a villain but I wish it was subiler about it as they acted slimy and purposefully arrogant. This is the kind of attitude I would accept if they were reporters but considering their role is to make a documentary with Maki it’s not beneficial to put her on the spot like that. It would’ve worked better if they were confused and accidentally put her in a bad position due to misinformation from her editor. Though this does give the KIznaivers a chance to each chase them off.

This doesn’t look over though as Maki finds out that they helped her as part of a mission and theirs big hints that this whole thing was set up by Noriko which causes Nagata to seek her out. Thus we end the episode with Nagata telling Noriko that he’s “disappointed in her” which as Noriko pointed out, is pretty powerful words to come from the emotionally stunted Nagata. We don’t get a chance to see her reaction but I am fairly certain those words cut hard as based on previous episodes, Nagata is the Kiznaiver Noriko has the biggest attachment to or some personal history. Meanwhile we have Niko who looks to be trying her best to help keep the gang together and I am fairly certain she’s going to have an episode when the topic of what everyone plans to do once the experiment is over comes up. She’s the most attached to the group and I am fairly certain she doesn’t want it to end. for fear of everyone going their separate ways. The love triangle has been put to the side for now though when they are discussing about their emotions getting shared besides pain, Tenga does make a small mention of something he wants to keep hiding. I am fairly certain I know what that something is. Yuta looks to be still trying to woo Maki and I think he will play a large part in resolving her problem. The question at the moment is just how powerful the Kiznaiver bond will get as now the group can feel Maki’s pain over her friend’s death. For now it looks like the bond shares just pain, be it physical or emotional. But will other emotions be shared among the group? I for one would find it most amusing if Maki began caring for the group and that feeling being shared much to her dismay. There’s likely some comedic potential in that.

~AidanAK47~

Joker Game – 06

by AidanAK47, posted in Currently Watching:, Joker Game

The problems I have with Joker game continue to be an issue as we have another episodic story about how amazing the D-agency spies are. After a overly long minute and a half showing of a train we are shown the plot of today’s episode. Put simply, a D-agent must obtain a newspaper with information encoded in an article from an informant. However the informant is murdered before he can pass on the information. Through some manipulation of some kids on the train, the spy finds out who murdered him and why. Then he knocks them out and…lets them go? Yes, on top of being super amazing spies, our team have a no killing policy which just makes me wretch. Spies are a moral grey area in their job and by effectively making them good guys, you kill part of what makes spies so interesting. I am reminded of the not ninja’s of Naruto or the Bodacious Space Pirates who were pretty much pirate in name only. Of course you can argue that the space pirates acted more like genuine real life pirates but that is the aspect that people love about them. Remove the aspect that makes the occupation interesting and you remove the very purpose of the occupation. If Joker Games spies are always going to be morally in the right then it’s not just uncharacteristic of spies but boring in general.  But back to the episode and I tried to look at this from another standpoint. At the moment looking for depth is a fool’s errand and whatever suspension of disbelief gets shattered once the show pulls something utterly ridiculous. (Where in the hell was he keeping that carrier pigeon?) So I am attempting to find a mindset with which I can enjoy this series more. Much like say adopting a mindless approach as I do with High school of the dead, where I just switch off my critic processes and enjoy the chaos. I find it difficult to do this here however as their looks to be clear intent for the show to be taken seriously. I try to treat it like a James bond film but it lacks the camp and charisma. I try to treat it as a thriller but I am thrown off by the jumps in logic within the writing. I try to look at it like a action movie but there is far too little action and no real threat. Truly, who is this for?

I do like how in this tale the spy made use of the children while making it out to be a simple game. The way he hid his true intent and gave them an incentive to play along was pretty clever and even how he managed to get them away by getting them to spill a glass to attract the attention of their mother. However once we encounter the murderers plot things get weaker as the spy somehow manages to lay down the entirety of the enemies plan with little to no evidence. Based on what was shown in the episode, there is no possible way he could have come to these conclusions. One of the most important aspects, that the informant was traveling with a woman, was completely omitted from the viewer. Why is it that even when things don’t go as planned, they still go exactly as you planned? The level of assumption in his conclusions is ridiculous and there’s no way he can declare this with so much certainly like he read the script beforehand. If I was to get interested in this story then at least make it feel as though some risk is involved. When our spy finds the informant dead his only reaction is akin “Oh well, guess it’s time for secondary plan 47”. When the character themselves displays no real worry over the situation then how is it that the audience is supposed to instead? It would be far more interesting if the murder caught him off guard and he was nervous while sitting trying think things out. That would show that he’s human. But he’s just sitting there, cool as a cucumber while everything just works out in his favor. That’s just not engaging entertainment and kills any reliability these spies have. Despite my griping I must reiterate that Joker game isn’t bad by any means, nor is it good. It’s passable but frustrating when you consider that the story could be so much more. I am hoping that the after credits sequence is an indicator of this episodic format getting replaced with a more interesting ongoing plot but it looks like it will be a while before that happens.

~AidanAK47~