Author: AidanAK47

One Punch Man – 10-11

by AidanAK47, posted in Currently Watching:, One Punch Man

Some anime original content to start off our episode showing off the capabilities of Tsumaki. She happened to have the personality of a tsundere loli yet despite that it’s not all that aggravating. Potentially the reason for that is that the stereotype is recognised by the characters in the show as what it truly is, not endearing but rude and annoying. It also helps that she happens to be able to pull a comet down to earth to smash her enemies to kingdom come. Tsumaki isn’t the only one to get the spotlight as we are introduced to the entirety of the Class S heroes, all of whom are as ridiculous as Puri Puri prisoner.

A really nice touch was the addition of a small bit of character development for Prisoner who took the Sea Kings advice to heart to improve himself. It’s small but it’s a worthy addition. Here is an interesting fact about the maze that Saitama was stuck in. The overhead view of the Maze was not drawn by web artist ONE or manga artist Murata. It was in fact drawn by a Japanese father as a hobby and it took him over seven years to complete. The artist asked for permission to use the maze in One Punch Man. The battle against Lord Boro’s looks to be a animation tour De force for Madhouse. With the S Class heroes taking on one of the Alien Generals while Saitama wreaks up the ship. Naturally Saitama has time to be the Saitama we all know and love. From tricking a General into leading him into the control centre and taking him out by chucking a pebble. The best joke by far being Saitama’s reaction to Boro’s surviving his Punch and claiming he broke the Armour that limited his power.

I said it many times before but episodes like these truly make things difficult for me. You can’t really criticise action beyond talking about animation and I said my piece on that. I suppose I could say with one episode left that Madhouse have truly done the manga and webcomic justice. I wonder why a dub hasn’t been in works yet. No offense to the sejous, they are quite talented but I always found it easier to immerse myself in an anime when I don’t have to read subtitles all the time. I am dub fan at heart and mainly went for subtitles out of necessity to keep up with the latest shows. Though if I ever learn Japanese then I will surely watch anime the way it’s meant to be watched, raw. One Punch man does have the potential to be a western hit and the only thing getting in the way of that is its sub only status. But unlike Kara no Kyoukai, I doubt it remain undubbed.

Young BlackJack – 10

by AidanAK47, posted in Currently Watching:, Young Blackjack

Thus begins one man’s revenge against those whom have done him wrong. It would not be out of line to say that Hyakki’s transformation from all around good guy to B-movie slasher villain was a tad sudden. The man is certainly desperate and I think suddenly having someone to blame for everything that’s gone wrong in your life could give rise to a thirst for vengeance but in this case we have the beginning and end of the transformation without the progress between. Hyakki accidentally killed one of his targets and suddenly took it as a sign from God that he must finish the job. The thing is that despite all efforts to make him intimating, these men are essentially getting chased by a limbless man. Hyakki has mastered the art of the Jason Voorhees casual stroll which can catch up with anyone regardless of running speed. As I stated before I don’t really feel any sympathy for his victims as they have brought it upon themselves. Any man who’s seen the count of Monte Cristo should know that before slighting a man you better be prepared for payback. A lot of this murder spree is inspired by the character Hyakki takes after who chased demons who stole their limbs.

One thing I must say is that detective has some of the worst bedside manner I have ever seen. I may not be a professional on the subject but I am sure you do not casually tell a patient that they lost an arm and then proceed to tell him his fellow doctor is dead.Then getting surprised when the patient has a complete mental breakdown. Detective, maybe you should have left this to the doctor instead.We did have an interesting moment with Blackjack coming to accept his need to operate regardless of laws. The Maiko made a valiant effort to prevent Blackjack from doing another illegal operation but due to her own lack of skill and experience was eventually pushed aside by Blackjack. It was interesting at just how she reacted to that, she certainly has pride but had to come to accept that Blackjack could save someone she couldn’t. She still took credit for his work to keep him in the medical world but that experience isn’t going to disappear. Other than that Hyakki isn’t making any effort to cover up his involvement with the murders which is odd considering the guy isn’t stupid. Or possibly he has no intent to get away with this at all.

Subete ga F ni Naru – 09

by AidanAK47, posted in Currently Watching:, Subete ga F ni Naru

Subete, I am not even angry. Just disappointed. When you started you promised something intelligent and I thought this might be that murder mystery I have been waiting for. But you have let me down and now that you have revealed your full hand, I see that a majority of the series has been fluff. How someone got into the room has been figured out mainly because we the audience have seen her past where Souhei seems to have made a huge assumption to reach that conclusion. Meanwhile figuring out how the murderer left was just completely impossible. No one could have figured out about the time difference using the info they gave us and most importantly the nature of a computer replacing a file of the same name is incorrect. A computer will never overwrite a file without being told to, in the case of a duplicate file it would likely create a file with something added on to the name to differentiate it. Sure the explanation for this would be a that Magata programmed it to overwrite files automatically but that’s something the viewer has never been made aware of. You may think that a Unix programmer might be able to figure it out but I do work with Unix systems and I didn’t have a clue. In the first place the timestamp issue only came up when Souhei used a script to extract the files. This is just cheating on the animes part. The addition of a new character at this stage is pointless and to make matters worse she’s downright obnoxious and completely unrelated to the story.

Thus the murderer is revealed to be none other than…Magata Shiki! Well of course it’s Magata, how can it be anyone other than Magata? That spotlight hasn’t budged an inch away from her for the entire series and no other character has enough exposure to possibly be a satisfying reveal. I guess I was hoping for her to be a red herring and for someone else to be the murderer but as it turns out, it’s that simple. That bugs me because I feel like I have been listening to someone who felt like they had something smart to say only for them to declare the obvious as if it was great wisdom.  So with the murder mystery turning out to be a waste I have to ask just what has this anime brought to the table. The sad thing is that when the mystery is gone there really isn’t anything left. The only notable characters are Souhei, Magata and Moe. The majority of the dialogue not related to the mystery was basically coming down to Moe getting sulky because Souhei doesn’t notice her affection or her getting jealous over Souhei. Souhei on the other hand is usually debating the philosophical or smoking. Magata is too enigmatic and alien to possibly relate to and I really do hope she has some reasonable motivation for this ridiculously convoluted plan. I mean if the goal was to remove her parents so she could give birth to the directors child then they are far better alternatives to consider than this. A tragically timed accident for example. If this was truly the only way Magata thought of on how to do this then I truly question if she even deserves the title of genius. In all honestly in the material presented feels like half a series stretched out to a full cour.

One Punch Man – 09

by AidanAK47, posted in Currently Watching:, One Punch Man

The end result is hardly a surprise but non the less this may be the strongest episode of One Punch Man yet. Despite Saitama being the real hero and taking down the Sea King, the show was stolen by Licenceless Rider. You have to respect the courage to fight a battle you know you will lose. Such courage that earned him the cheers and encouragement of the people in the shelter. Particularly like how the first person to start cheering him on was a child Licenceless Rider helped get his balloon back in one of the earlier episodes. It was a surprisingly beautiful moment and with the cheers of the populace guiding him, Licenceless Rider put all his strength into the fight and was…swiftly punched unconscious with a single strike. It was then I laughed and then immediately felt guilty about it. Still he has no hard feelings about it and even sent Saitama a thank you letter. That was a part of the anime that surprised me and gave the scene a lot more feeling than it had in the manga. It could just be me looking far too deeply into this but when Saitama found out that it was Licenceless Rider who gave him the letter, there was a lot of emotion behind the actors line and that ever so slight smile. Saitama surely doesn’t like being hated and this may be the very first time someone has honestly thanked him for doing what was essentially a thankless job for three years. Licenceless Rider, you may not have won the battle, but you won our hearts.

The fight animation was certainly impressive but I must say I wish the art was the same. I understand this is a necessary sacrifice to drop down art quality for movement but when the art drops in One Punch Man, it really sticks out. Sometimes it can be excused for comical effect as I think during jokes character designs tend to resemble the artwork of the original webcomic, an example of which in this episode when Geno’s was about to burn what he and Saitama thought was another hate letter. But during Genos battle with the Sea King the character designs got really rough. It’s an unreasonable demand but if they could fix the art up a little in the blu-rays then this could look so much better. Another company, though this is very minor, would be that Saitama’s Punch should have had a little more slow motion going on. The Manga really gave you the time to let it sink in and I wish they kept a single solitary panel where before falling down the Sea King just gapes downward at the hole in his chest with an expression of “What just happened?”. But other than that, Saitama punching away the rain was just sublime. Sadly thanks to the efforts of a person who was the personification of Reddit or any YouTube comments list, Saitama had to play the role of a cheater in order for the other heroes to not lose face. As a result he’s now B class but his reputation is even worse but at least the hero association has some idea of just what he’s capable of.

Young BlackJack – 09

by AidanAK47, posted in Currently Watching:, Young Blackjack

I think the outcome of this episode was thoroughly spoiled by the opening, where we have Blackjack and this Hyakki facing each other as arch enemies. But I didn’t expect that the man’s character would be so interesting. The episodes beginning broke the fourth wall by referring the original Mangaka’s works and how is man is based on Tezuka’s other work. I was fully expecting a villain of the level of zaki from episode two and got instead a sympathetic ambitious man who had most of his limbs lost in a car accident. As well as a doctor who saw Blackjacks recovery and the surgery that made him who he is. He’s a really respectable guy seeing as he lost all his limbs and yet uses his disability to help design better prosthetics and even having a fiancé willing to stay with him regardless if he’s limbless or not.

So it seems that revenge is in order and while the show will likely go the route of how revenge is never right, I can’t help but feel it’s justified in this case. From the looks of things these doctors cut the brakes on his car and fully intended to kill him in order to remove him from the medical world. I don’t see how responding in kind is particularly evil. Still one thing I find odd about how these doctors prevented him from operating again by informing the patient that he would be using prosthetic limbs. Wouldn’t that be par for the course to inform the patient on just who is doing the operation? I mean what would have happened if after the operation he went to see the patient and the patient got furious that he was operated on by a quadraplegic?

A common point that is brought up again and again is that if Blackjack continues to carry out these illegal procedures that he will never be allowed to become a true doctor. Seeing as we already know that he will lose his license and become a back alley surgeon these reminders that Blackjack will lose his license seem to provoke the question “I this the operation that gets him removed from the professional medical world?” So far he’s managed to avoid that outcome but with Hyakki going rogue there’s a chance he might let slip that Blackjack was the one who gave him the ability to operate. These two look to become enemies next episode but just how will they combat each other in a show about medical operations?

Subete ga F ni Naru – 08

by AidanAK47, posted in Currently Watching:, Subete ga F ni Naru

At this point the theory of Magata being pregnant before she was locked down on the Island is looking very likely as during Souhei’s revelation of the answer to everything, we get a brief glimpse of a pregnant woman. But lord only knows what the Ostriches are supposed to symbolize. What I really wonder is just how Souhei came to any conclusion at all with the lacking amount of information he was given. In particular if he does come to the conclusion that Magata was pregnant going in then I just have to question how he could possibly know that when her relationship to the director was made privy only to us, the viewers. Naturally however Souhei doesn’t share his miraculous insight as Moe cuts him off saying she will figure it out on her own. We do have three more episodes to go after all.

While Moe says she will figure it out I feel her earlier words captured my feelings on this mystery. Namely when she said, “I stopped caring about the case” and that is my exact mindset. I don’t like giving up on a puzzle but I feel the show is not handing us all the pieces needed to solve it. Two murders have happened, one inside a locked room and another on the rooftop. However we have no idea on the layout of the faculty, or the character of the facility personnel or the timeframe of the murders. The how of this mystery is missing far too much information to come to any conclusions about what happened, whereas the Who of this mystery seems blatantly obvious. I truly cannot see anyone else other than Magata being the murderer for no one else had screentime significant enough to make being the culprit justifiable. Some are saying Magata’s kid is the culprit but I find that lacking when it comes to motive and the big question of how she is able to move about the facility like a ninja despite spending her entire life in a locked small area.

No, my suspect remains Magata and from what this episode is suggesting, Magatas older sister is Magata herself. The two big hints to this is Magata comparing herself to the loneliness of seven and her sister being featured in Souhei’s revelation. What adds to this is that she is not present in any of Magata’s flashbacks and the camera’s reluctance to show Magata’s face when in the sealed area. So my current theory is this, Magata had a child in the sealed area secretly and raised her up to take on her role and impersonate her. Then under the guise of being “Magata’s older Sister” she left the island with the director. Hence why Magata has always retained a youthful appearance. The director killed the child and when he brought Magata to the island she killed him. There are numerous holes in this theory such as how did she get the things need. To raise a child without tipping off the guards or what would have happened if she had a boy or if her daughter didn’t look like her? And namely just how did the director manage to kill the girl inside a locked room? But like I said, I have past the point of caring. Subete has been a rather big disappointment and while its reveal might save it somewhat, the series would remain a slow show that plays its cards too early and then drags its feet to the finish.

One Punch Man – 08

by AidanAK47, posted in Currently Watching:, One Punch Man

I wish I knew just what that girl at the beginning was parodying as she’s clearly been overdrawn in a completely different style. My closest guess would be the poster girls of creature features in the 60s and 70s as she wouldn’t look out of place if pasted into a movie poster. I don’t think I will ever get tired of seeing Geno’s act like a housewife, just seeing him dry plates with his hand jets makes me smile. This week put quite a lot of spotlight on a hero previously shown, Licenceless rider.(Yes the Subtitles call him Mumen rider but frankly his English name is better.) A guy who looked to be a one note joke actually might end up being one of the more upstanding heroes in the show seeing as when all other C class heroes are just giving up, he’s rushing ahead to fight the Sea King and protect the citizens in the shelter. It’s just such a pity that he doesn’t stand even the slightest of a chance against the Sea King but well Saitama’s close by so at least he will be avenged. This episode has something I like to call “the Alucard effect”. Put simply when the main character of a series is so ridiculously powerful that nothing poses a challenge then that main character will be removed from the fight as long as possible in order to build up the villain as a credible threat. For we all know that the minute Saitama shows up this Sea King is doomed.

As a result of this the episode was mainly about other heroes dealing with the threat and minimizing damage. The standout was the fights of Sonic and Piri Piri Prisoner. I could go and say Prisoner is an offensive stereotype but quite frankly he’s such a ridiculously purposefully over the top stereotype that it’s hilarious. So I think we can put down the pitchforks and agree that in no way shape or form would anyone use Piri Piri Prisoner as a representation of homosexuals or prisoners in general. That would be akin to using Mario as a representation of the Italian. Best of all was Sonic’s reaction to Prisoners “Angel Mode” which without a doubt mirrored the thoughts of every person watching. Despite being a one sided slaughter fest, the fights were pretty well animated with a lot of force behind the blows. Props to Rikiya Koyama, another big name attached to one time villains, for putting in a perfect performance as the Sea King. The soundtrack is also great with electric guitars and drums coming in just at the right moment to elevate what’s on screen. If it’s one thing I could complain about it’s that this episode ended on a cliffhanger and seeing as what happens next is one of my favorite moments in the series that was a real let down. Granted it’s coming next episode and Madhouse is certain to do it justice but the wait is so long.

Young BlackJack – 08

by AidanAK47, posted in Currently Watching:, Young Blackjack

While I find the level of risk in this two part arc to be inconsequential, I must admit that I like how it all turned out. For this is the first time in this series that Blackjack failed. While he was able to discern the cause of Johnny’s lack of pain, he was unable to treat it with Dr Risenberg coming in to fix Johnny’s problem himself. So for the first time Blackjack was not in control of the situation and proven that he isn’t invincible. Dr Risenberg is a nice example of knowing too much about those you respect. I think that the internet, in particular Twitter, has given us far too much insight into our idols. This is an issue because people aren’t perfect and we all have our issues and demons. In many ways it’s better to keep that untarnished vision of those you admire than to look too deeply and find they are just as human as you are. In this case, our dear doctor was involved with the experiments done on Jewish people in concentration camps. From the sound of things his thirst for medical knowledge lead him to human experimentation and now he even fears that Blackjack walks down the same path as he did.

So his efforts in this episode were less to give Johnny a normal life but rather to save Blackjack from getting erased by the American military so they could keep their experiments secret. This episode looks like it was dealing with people’s inner demons as we have a sufferer of PTSD, Tommy around to help Blackjack out. And if I am not mistaken it seems that Tommy will end up being another future adversary to Blackjack. Again I must bring up Blackjacks over exaggerated method of presentation, as I truly haven’t come to a conclusion whether it is holding the show back or keeping it from falling flat on it’s face. Blackjack always deals with serious issues but the nature of the show is highly in your face which gives it dramatic punch while sacrificing the credibility of taking it seriously. I am reminded of the Phoenix wright games which make use of a similar method to make what would be rather dull courtroom proceedings in ridiculously theatrical displays that can pull any player in with it’s energy. But those games are often comical and lighthearted as a result despite dealing with murder most of the time. So I wonder if Blackjack was presented in a manner that was more serious would that be a benefit or would it drain the colour out of what has be a really good show so far?

Subete ga F ni Naru – 07

by AidanAK47, posted in Currently Watching:, Subete ga F ni Naru

Oh those poor seiyūs that had to act in today’s episode. I can only imagine the horror when a Japanese speaking seiyū is told they need to have an entire conversation in English in a fairly dialogue heavy show. Japanese and English happen to be two of the hardest languages to learn so if they managed to find one seiyū who could fluently act well in both that would have been a miracle. To give credit they did work on producing it as best they could preventing it from being unintentionally hilarious but to do so they needed to sacrifice acting out any emotion in the scene. As a result you have a scene which looks like it was acted out by Microsoft Sam. What I find odd is how these two’s impressions of Magata counter my own. I was under the impression that Magata was something whom disliked the idea of being held down by anything, yet these two claim that’s exactly what she desired.

My attention on this show happens to be slipping and the reason for that I believe is in just how little information is learned in the last few episodes. In today’s episode we learned…that outside attack is impossible, that Magata was weird even to her sister, that when Moe’s parents died Souhei was with her and that Magata knew this was going to happen 15 years ago. Most of the information is worthless as it does not give new light to motives or how this happened. Moe’s revelation about realising Souhei was with her when her parents died doesn’t really add anything, rather it renders the strange connection Magata and Moe share to be rather superficial. We are more than halfway through the series and not even close to a solution here. As the series is drawing to a close I find my brainstorming getting walled off and boxed in. There are too many uncertainties, a lack of suspects and not enough information to work with.

At this point I can’t see anyone else other than Magata being the murderer and as to why that is, because out of the only characters with significant development she’s the only one that makes sense. The rest of the cast is far too underdeveloped to make a good murderer and our two main characters are the detectives is it wouldn’t make much sense for either one to remain to try and solve a murder they committed. That leaves Magata and the director, who are both presumably dead. The more we see of Magata, the more suspicious she becomes. It’s pretty clear that she knew that this would happen fifteen years ago and the only ways she could possibly know that would be if she was a precog or planned it. Moe’s dream sequence seems to hint that Magata in some way might have transferred her existence to a digital form which I think would be a bit too supernatural for this series. I will accept some truly outrageous technology(Even if it is essentially a high tech version of a sensory deprivation tank(AKA Isolation Tank).) But I think when we reach the levels of AI then things get a bit too fantasy for my liking.

One Punch Man – 07

by AidanAK47, posted in Currently Watching:, One Punch Man

This episode mainly focused on a giant Meteor about to annihilate the city and the introduction if S class heroes, Metal Knight and Bang. Bang makes it a point to say how the top class heroes are hardly very heroic with most not showing up at all to stop a city’s total destruction. Even one of the two S class heroes that did show up only did so to test his new weapons. It’s seems that this show is making a point that there are few of these avengers out to do the greater good but more in it for more selfish reasons. So it is that out of the legion of heroes introduced, Saitama may be the closest thing to what a hero should be. Its is at this point where I must remark on the inconsistency of One Punch Man’s animation quality. At times it can be remarkably fluid and gorgeous but at other times it can be heavy amounts of animation saving techniques at work. What’s more concerning is that these random quality highs and lows can happen within close proximity. It really seems that any scene with Genos is given an animation overhaul but the scene with Saitama punching through the Meteor was a mixed with cheap and great animation. But that could be a clash of animation styles at work in one scene, as it certainly felt like the character animation and the explosion were done by two different people. The animators passion certainly shines through to save the scene but it could have had more impact with more movement and force behind the punch. However I must admit that complaining about animation in this show is much like complaining about a lack of sand in a desert. What’s been done has been done excellently, it’s more a minor complaint that I wish it had more consistency.

So Saitama manages to save the city but unfortunately fails to prevent the Meteor fragments from causing serious damage. Thus naturally for the human race, they blame everything on the man who saved all their hides. I have said before that Saitama’s greatest challenges come not from a fist fight but rather a more psychological approach. In this regard the Tank Top brothers actually picked a clever way of attacking him. By drawing in a crowd to berate Saitama for the destruction of the city. Nearly worked too, if they hadn’t tried to stage a publicity stunt of them taking him down in to boost their rank. It looks to be that Saitama’s deeds as a heroes are going to be mainly unsung and in the public eyes he’s an incompetent cheater of a hero. However at least he has Genos on his side who sees his true worth. Due to the differences in language there’s very few times I can judge a voice actor in a subbed show. After all what the subtitles say is merely an liberal interpretation using the closest english equivalent and I like the know how of the nuances of the Japanese language to truly judge the talent of Japanese voice actors. But I think we can all agree that even when lacking that knowledge it could be clearly seen that the actor didn’t handle that shouting scene right at all. From the manga it’s pretty clear his voice should be more angry and powerful but here the tone of his voice really didn’t match the mood of the scene. Quite frankly, it just didn’t sound right and really killed the scene for me. Next episode looks to be the beginning of the sea king attack which has been something I have been looking forward to since this adaptions announcement. However I wonder if they plan to make it a two partner or handle the seven chapter arc in one episode?