Author: AidanAK47

Gakkou Gurashi! – 07

by AidanAK47, posted in Currently Watching:, Gakkou Gurashi

This episode has been a weaker episode than those so far. The opening has gone through a number of changes now that we have reached over the halfway point. Megumi’s part of the opening has been replaced by a shot of her grave, the colourful transition after showing the title is now a series of zombie hands, Miki’s friend is now shown walking alone amidst zombies and pictures that were happy shots of each of the characters are now showing them depressed and worried. The fact that Taromarou is now a single bright happy shot among shots of people who are not dead or missing makes me think that dog is not going to have a bright future. There wasn’t much to the episode itself as it was mainly about the gang sending out letters by balloon and one pigeon by the name of Arnault Hatonishiki II. Thought there was Yuki noticing a discrepancy in her memory regarding Megumi which shows she’s getting even closer to snapping out of it. Megumi or her subconscious took the act of consoling her and pushing her back into the delusion. But even she seems to see that this trick is coming to its end.

So there’s a lot of hope here and a fairly lighthearted optimism which can mean only one thing. Everything is about to go to hell. The night is always darkest before the dawn but in tragedy the light is always brightest before it burns out. The new ending is proof of that as we have the girls disappearing and being replaced with Yuki’s hat, a broken CD player, shovel, shredded teddy bear and a knife all of which is bloodstained. Along with the text on the chalkboard saying “We’ve Graduated!” Which likely means what you think it means. Something is going to break this all down and my mind is preoccupied with what is going to be the trigger. Yuki is the obvious choice as she’s already in a delicate state that could collapse at any moment but my money’s on Miki. Miki is the one most uncomfortable with the situation and could set off Yuki easily with how she is unwilling to go along. She has friction with Yuuri as she is generally the one to argue against her when the topic of the situation comes up. But most importantly, Miki has something which could set her off and cause her to go berserk. The friend that left her in the Mall is without doubt, most certainly dead. But Miki still believes she’s out there. If her friends corpse happens to walk up to the school and Miki sees it, there’s no telling what she could do.

Gangsta. – 07

by AidanAK47, posted in Currently Watching:, Gangsta

Now the past has been mostly revealed, Worick’s friendship with Nicholas has become a more complex thing. Worick seems to see him as a good friend yet resent him for going kill crazy and murdering his whole family. Though the murder of his father looked to be an order he himself made to Nicholas and regretted. Honestly I am having trouble understanding just what there relationship is. I can’t tell whether Worick hates or likes Nicholas and whether Nicholas killed Worick’s family because of an order or rather out of resentment for Worick buying Celebrer off his father and giving him reason to ditch Nicholas. The whole affair comes across as Worick making a deal with the devil what with Nicholas ripping out Worick’s eye as some sort of payment. I still don’t like the one sided nature of Woricks father as I really don’t know what could spur on this level of violence. The only real factor given in this anime for his hatred is that he knows that Worick is smarter than him and that makes him feel inferior, or at least from what I can gather. There are likely other factors but it isn’t really made clear.

So yet again we have a Twilight defying gravity like no tomorrow, if I didn’t know better I would say this show was trying to spite me. No matter what I say these guys are here to stay so all I can do is try to accept their presence. Which is getting more difficult as they now have Darker than black Contract prices such as the kid not aging past puberty and Nicholas being deaf. That’s just…never mind, its here to stay so if Twilights also happen to be able to shoot ki blasts my only option is to roll with it. It’s nice to see Alex become more assertive even when I am certain no one else other than Worick would have reacted to that wake up embrace quite as calmly. She’s a much better character now that the drug is out of her system though I do wonder if she really plans to continue being a prostitute. So we have two new twilights on the block who have been killing other twilights and collecting tags and they remind me of the vampire twins of black lagoon. It’s hard to get a read on them for how briefly they were shown but they come off so far as a rather generic villain.

Gate: Thus the JSDF Fought There! – 07

by AidanAK47, posted in Currently Watching:, Gate: Thus the JSDF Fought There

I understand that for an anime adaption some character designs need to be simplified in order for an easier time to keep them in proportion in animation. But while the characters who suffer in this episode because of this are indeed minor characters, its really a shame to see them become something unrecognisable. The two characters in question are Perisa the Catgirl and Delilah the warrior bunny. Now despite how the job is treated with no humor whatsoever, I am fully aware that the words warrior bunny is about as easy to take seriously as a shark tax accountant. It’s even harder to try to accept when the girls look as young as they do in the anime series. In the manga designs the girls had a level of maturity which really lent to their characters but from the looks of things they went with the Light novel designs which make them look far too young and Persia with pink hair just throws me off completely.

This episode goes to show that even with the best laid plans nothing will really go as expected. Because someone is bound to mess things up no matter how hard you try. In this case a blond Drill haired girl who first dragged Itami back to the city beaten and bloody without thinking and her assaulting him again when she went to his room on orders to sleep with him in order to get the JSDF to forget about the incident and was promptly unintentionally ignored when she entered his crowded room. The pain the princess felt when that came to light is one I am all too familiar with. You give someone one simple job and yet somehow they find a way to bugger it up. It’s quite amazing we humans can get anything done together at all.

The joy of the episode is seeing just how desperate the princess gets as the episode goes on. She the first of the major players if the empire to realize just what they are facing and there’s even a point where her composure momentarily breaks while misunderstanding Itami’s position in the army. By the time she makes it to the base to apologise for the incident, she’s like a scolded child. Next episode looks to have the otherworlders visit Japan which should at least give them a taste of information age culture.

Gakkou Gurashi! – 06

by AidanAK47, posted in Currently Watching:, Gakkou Gurashi

Well the story continues on from the flashback, showing Miki first joining the club. Right off the bat the episode pushes to answer the question of Megumi’s existence. It’s a answer that was pretty obvious by this point as the foreshadowing was pretty heavy on this particular detail but this episode makes it crystal clear. Megumi is dead and has been dead right from the beginning, with her grave on the rooftop being shown in the background in episode one. The Megumi Yuki has been talking to is just another of her delusions and the ending goes as far as to show scenes where Yuki and Megumi were together and slowly faded her out to show what the scene really was. As I said this revelation is hardly shocking for anyone who was paying attention. But the execution remains immensely solid. The scene where Miki asks Yuki who Megumi was when she was supposed to be in the room was just great. The music getting distorted and fading with Yuki staring at her with those black eyes, it was just an excellent reveal scene. So much so that I wish it hadn’t been made so obvious that it wasn’t shocked by it. The little things were great too like Yuki “handing” Megumi a bottle of water and if you listen you can hear it hit the ground.

Another thing that was confirmed is that the girls really do rely on Yuki’s mental state to keep their spirits up. In some ways this is good as in a zombie apocalypse it’s not the zombies which are the most dangerous thing. It’s the people who mess things up. Yuki acts as a good meditator to prevent the other girls from doing anything too rash or stupid. But it’s a perilous balance as when Yuki goes down, they all go down. Yuki’s mental state is already a pretty fragile thing as shown here she could break down just from someone asking a honest question. Yuki herself seems pretty comfortable in her safe zone and even when Miki questioned her it honestly felt like she was trying to get Miki to play along rather than deny her. It’s possible that Yuki is slowly slipping out of her delusions and doesn’t really want to let go of them, so she attempts to continue the farce even when she is becoming aware of it. Really that is the best option as despite how it could be broken at any second, this may be one of the most functional survivors of a zombie Apocalypse that I have seen. Everyone gets along, there’s no petty fights over supplies, people are honestly trying to enjoy themselves and no liabilities to make a huge mistake that ends up screwing everyone over. Well for now at least, one thing that I think will come to a head later is Miki’s reluctance to play along with Yuki’s delusions. Even in the first episodes she still only half heartedly plays along to keep her happy. It’s clear that while Miki understands the situation, she’s not keen on keeping Yuki contained in her happy place. I think that if a really bad situation comes Miki may just force the truth on her out of frustration. This would really put her at odds with Yuuri, who by the looks of it, is the one most determined to keep things as they are.

Gangsta. – 06

by AidanAK47, posted in Currently Watching:, Gangsta

When taking into account the show so far, I find that the quiet character moment stand out far more than the over the top fight scenes with knife wielding psychos on rooftops. The dialogue between characters is much more engaging that two characters jumping around like Bleach Soul Reapers. In particular it great seeing Worick and Nicholas talk especially when Worick’s doing most of the talking while Nicholas is saying the bare minimum. It shows that Worick has been around him for such a long time that he can tell what he wants to say just from his face and movements. The back story about Worick teaching him to write as a kid and being kindred spirits in abusive environments is all really great stuff.

One flaw I found with this episode however was the use of the age old stock character for tragic back stories. The alcoholic abusive father. That’s even above the overbearing religious zealot parent in backstory tropes. A prime example of just how overused this is that before I watched this episode, I watched a DC animated feature called “Superman vs the Elite” (Which despite the title and some lacking animation, was quite a good animated movie) and when it came to a character’s tragic back story time what kind of father had he? Alcoholic abusive father. I certainly are not saying that people like that don’t exist in reality however in cases of entertainment it just seems like a writer taking the easy route instead of building a more morally complex abuser. Or at least something less cliche, like Nicholas’s father who got a twilight prostitute pregnant and decided to make use of the kids abilities as opposed to just getting rid of him. As well as the fact that his father killed his mother. It’s still fairly one dimensional but at least it isn’t a standard trope.

As it turns out Alex wasn’t kidnapped and the visitor turned out to be the doctor like I suspected. Thankfully mangalobe didn’t go to weird heights again as Alex’s hallucinations were in fact the result of withdrawal symptoms from the drug Barry was feeding her to keep her in line. After checking up I am fairly certain this drug was fictitious as well as while there are pimps who use drugs to keep girls in line there aren’t drugs like what was described here. Closest thing to it from what I can find would be a liquid called toluene. Still, made up or not I like how it affected Alex as she went back on the streets prostituting herself over fear of an imaginary Barry. It explains the sudden mental instability of Alex better than a quickly appearing trauma. I a hoping that now without the drugs influence she will become more active in the show as she does need a little more personality. I am hoping for more episodes like this in the future.

Gate: Thus the JSDF Fought There! – 06

by AidanAK47, posted in Currently Watching:, Gate: Thus the JSDF Fought There

Richard Wagner’s “Ride of the Valkyries” is a fairly iconic piece of music in pop culture. So much so that after Apocalypse Now (1979) whenever there is a helicopter assault in any piece of media, it’s practically obligatory to play Ride of the Valkyries. Even just today when finishing Far Cry 3 and had a helicopter turret sequence near the end of the game, what was playing in the background? Ride of the Valkyries. Gate however went above and beyond just referencing Apocalypse Now with the song. The straight up quoted and referenced it throughout the sequence, some scenes of animation being recreations of the the films scene itself. It’s glorious to behold. Though Rory’s fan service moment before the battle was certainly on the gratuitous side, while it is true that I have no idea what the effect of dozens of human souls flowing through you is like, it being like an aphrodisiac isn’t the first thing to come to mind.

It is a matter that bothered me before but I am not fond of the princesses character design in the anime. In the Light novel and manga her design had a much more mature look, where as her anime design just looks far too young. Animation for Gate remains to be inconsistent as at times it can be quite fluid but can drop to levels of still frames. Admittedly it’s not easy to animate army battles but it would be good to remain consistent in animation as opposed to dropping between low and high. Though even at its best I have found A1s animation to be rather rough. In particular with Rory’s battle while good there were times the animation seemed off. The princess finally knows who she’s dealing with and it was rather amusing to see them shocked at them accepting what would be losers terms when by all rights they could have had her at their mercy. It’s a pity her soldiers are not quite as informed and may have made the greatest mistake of their lives by episodes end.

Gakkou Gurashi! – 05

by AidanAK47, posted in Currently Watching:, Gakkou Gurashi

As these episodes go on it really is something to wonder about the matter of Yuki being a hindrance or a help. I have said previously that she does push the group in the right direction but it is still a case where her mentality is dangerous. The group need to come up with excuses to keep her from nearly getting them killed but even then she is being rather loud in an area where zombies could rip them apart at any moment. But she also saved Miki and pushed them to take the risk to go to the mall to collect supplies. As the group tries to keep her in her delusions it also pushes them to take risks to ensure their survival. That said, there were moments that made me want her to get with the program and stop endangering the group. Despite the group’s efforts it does seem that Yuki’s dream world is slowly crumbling as in this episode she at least had some clarity to the situation. She clearly knew that Miki was in danger and seeing the zombies again did shake her so much to the point where she got a fever. It shows that eventually her dream is going to collapse and when it does it’s not going to be pretty. Would I be considered sadistic if I actually was looking forward to that moment that does happen? As a side note, I found an article noting a potential reason as to why Yuki’s uniform is a different colour from the others. If you invert the colours of Yuki’s uniform then it matches the same colour as the other heroines uniforms and likewise. It could be a really clever symbolism on Yuki’s flawed perception of reality.

Undoubtedly this is the moment the group was in the most danger, so they are lucky that these zombies happened to be be of the more classic slow moving variety rather than the running kind. Thus allowing our girls to shop for clothes and for Taromarou to form a bond with Yuki. These moments remain a double edged sword as they are light hearted fluff but undeniably strengthen the darker moments of the show. At points it’s even fairly enjoyable however still the mood is starting to clash a small bit. I think the girls trying out clothes with no worries is a little out of place considering that a zombie could be in ait  at any corner and the last thing you want is them catching you with your pants down. Or in this case, in a swimsuit. Good luck going to the beach in that girls, and was Yuuri’s boob bounce really necessary? Still the small things like Yuuri worried that Kurimi might not make it back from her solo food run or discovering a legion of zombies in a theater room. As well as the rather dark implication that the Theater room was barred from the outside to keep them in and maybe not all the people in the room were zombies at that point. Yuuri making use of the alarm to disorientate the zombies was a pretty clever play on her part as by all accounts Miki looked like she was doomed once pulled off the piano. I don’t know whether the next episode will continue to follow Miki first joining the group or go back to the point before the flashback but admittedly I would be interested in just how she reacts to it.

Gangsta. – 05

by AidanAK47, posted in Currently Watching:, Gangsta

This point I will likely hammer into the ground but I will repeat it as long as it remains to be a problem. The twilight superpowered humans are just not suited for this show and what’s worse is that they are taking it over. I tried this episode to embrace the idea that these characters are here to stay and are a part of the setting but they just seem so absurd that this becomes impossible. The fight between Nicholas and the knife boy was just ridiculous in it’s presentation. You can say these are strengthened humans and add in made up drugs that remove pain limiters but you just can’t have a character use a guy’s shoulder to propel himself five stories high and expect me to accept that. Gravity still exists no matter how strong you are. On that note was it really necessary to invent a drug which basically functions as a powerful painkiller and to give it a name as strange as “Celebrer”?  That name makes it sound more like a celebrity gossip column than a drug. Basically when it comes to the Twilights this show operated on Shounen rules such as gravity is non existent and all wounds heal with bandages. But the other aspects function more as a Seinen rules causing a strange disconnect between the two worlds.

We also have the introduction of this new scared army woman who is in charge of a large group of twilights and keeps them in line. I will refrain from making a comparison to a certain show again but it’s pretty obvious just who this character is like. One thing that worries me about this show is a potential jump the shark moment with Alex’s pimp. It’s unlikely but with the complete ridiculousness of Samurai Flamenco, I can’t rule out the possibility of the pimp being still alive. The twilights shaking off knife wounds are not helping matters. I don’t think this show will slip up with such a grievous misstep and it’s much more likely Alex was just hallucinating due to her own trauma. If anything it makes more sense that the doctor kidnapped her as he did have the same umbrella. But the fact that I cannot rule it out is a concern. At the moment I admit that my interest in this show is slipping and while we learned a little backstory about Nicolas taking on Monroe’s goons once as a kid and nearly decimating them, I find that it doesn’t really give much insight into his character. The thing that caught my attention more was the mention of the girl called Verona who apparently overdosed on the painkiller drug. What she is to Nicholas is a much more interesting question than what was Nicholas’s track record of killing goons. Overall for this show to improve I think we need more character building episodes and the action to be more grounded in reality.

Gate: Thus the JSDF Fought There! – 05

by AidanAK47, posted in Currently Watching:, Gate: Thus the JSDF Fought There

This episode focused on the third princess and her past efforts to make an order of female knights a respected force in the king’s army. Naturally being an all female group in a medieval society doesn’t exactly get them a lot of respect. The king looks to be treating them as a glorified ornament. But she’s pulled into siege warfare as the town she is visiting is being assaulted by remnants of their own forces and the town leader is too young to take charge of the defense. There’s an ongoing war and everyone’s too busy fighting each other to fight the enemy. Humanity at its finest. The fact that they need to accept aid from their otherworldly enemy just to fight off bandits from their own world is testament to how ludicrous the situation is. Out of the female leads so far, the princess seems the most level headed. Her leadership skills are good and looks to be decent strategist though their was some ditzyness on her part by accidentally knocking Itami to the ground while enthusiastically throwing open the doors. But she still has the same level of ignorance as the rest of the other world regarding the JSDF as she uses them as a suicidal front line in order to fortify the town. Thats a bit like using a rocket launcher as a makeshift baseball bat.

Rory looks to be getting fairly attached to Itami as she questions him here and Itami puts clear what he intends. Its the right idea to show off just what they are capable off as the biggest issues is in how the medieval world has no idea of their level of power. Itami intends it as a message to get along with them instead of fighting but Rory is right in that they will be effectively terrifying the princess with a display of power. A moment that I truly am looking forward too. There’s just something satisfying about seeing these people in blank awe of military might. It’s reminiscent of soldiers reaction to Berserks Guts cutting down people with his sword. The moment when the person finds out they are utterly outmatched in every way. The end of the episode gives a big decision to our princess as she can choose to call over the JSDF after sending them on a suicide mission or attempt to fight to the end with her remaining forces. In any case it’s doubtful Itami will just stand by as bandits raid the town.

Gakkou Gurashi! – 04

by AidanAK47, posted in Currently Watching:, Gakkou Gurashi

In 2004’s zombie spoof film “Shaun of the Dead”, Simon Peggs master plan for surviving the zombie apocalypse was to ” Go to the Winchester, have a pint and waiting for all this to blow over.” The funny thing about this is that barring the Winchester pub part this is likely the best method of survival. A common misunderstanding of many zombie film protagonists is that they assume that zombies are there forever more but when you think about it logically they will all be dead again in very little time. Zombies are essentially rotting corpse’s so if you just hole up in a place with a few months of food and water then when you come out the zombies brains would have rotted and they would all be dead. Unless there’s some kind of supernatural rejuvenation that keeps them from rotting, once you find a place to wait it out then you have won. The reason I bring this up is that in this episode despite how wrong they made it appear, Miki had the right idea by staying where they were and waiting it out. Where as her friends idea was just idiocy but to be fair to her, it was likely an idea born out of boredom and desperation. If I was stuck in a room with my only source of entertainment being a CD player then I would likely try to get out anyway I could. But its one hundred percent certain that she’s now dead and wandering the mall to give Miki an unpleasant surprise next episode. One thing this episode showed was just why Taromaru hates Miki so much and how she joined the school survival group.

This episode clearly takes place before the previous episodes as only there girls are at the school and they look to be running out of food considering the food portions. I think it’s fairly safe to say that Megumi is dead, after all the amount of foreshadowing makes that pretty obvious, and from the looks of things her dead body is in the staff room. Considering that Yuki went to the staff room with a dark look and came back with her car keys. Megumi’s death is probably the main trigger for Yuki’s mental instability as she is the person closest to her in the main cast. Yuki’s mentality does present some rather interesting scenarios as a means of helping the group. In this case proposing a school trip as a guise of venturing out to search for food. However it does make me wonder whether she is somewhat conscious of the situation or whether this is her mind molding the situation to fit her delusion. It does seem like she’s going out of her way to keep herself from breaking out out her delusion. Though the group also goes out of their way to help her keep it. In many ways Yuki is a bright light for the group with her boundless optimism and silly antics. A mentally broken girl is the one thing keeping the group from falling into despair. When put that way, it’s quite messed up.

What’s messed up in a different way is that Mikis been lying around in her underwear which happens to be a garterbelt. Now I am not going to call myself a man highly educated in matters of teenager girl lingerie choice but I don’t think it’s common for young girls to choose such adult underwear for a normal day of school and hanging out with friends. So it leaves me the question of whether this is a part of her character to go for adult underwear or whether the animators figured they would put in some more sex appeal in the anime. Chances are it’s number two but if it wasn’t it does bring up some more questions. Does she wear it because it’s her personal taste or was it to appeal to her friend whom she was with? Saying Miki is a lesbian wouldn’t be farfetched as she does have a rather close relationship with her friend and she does seem to be rather nervous when around Yuki. The heavy blush when Yuki was hugging her could be a sign but baiting like this is common in any female relationship in anime. The show continues to avoid directly showing gore as in any time Miki encountered something horrifying they anime would just blackout and jump ahead. We never really see how the two managed to barricade themselves in a storeroom. It works as this does seem to be Miki recalling her memory of the event and naturally when it comes to the more traumatizing moments her memory black’s it out. Again with gore or any kind of horror, its what you don’t see that truly scares you. Well next time Miki looks to be joining up with the group and while we know she survives this, how well her mind survived it is still a concern.