Author: AidanAK47

Seishun Buta Yarou wa Bunny Girl Senpai no Yume wo Minai – 08[Wash It All Away on a Stormy Night]

by AidanAK47, posted in Currently Watching:, Yarou wa Bunny Girl Senpai no Yume wo Minai

This was certainly an interesting arc and quite different from what I usually find from light novel affair. Generally in light novels the girl of the arc has her problems solved by our protagonist jumping in to either give a rousing pep talk or punch whatever is making their life hard. Thus leaving them “fixed” and with a love that will most certainly be unrequited. But this arc pretty much throws away all of that and instead we have a girl with a multifaceted problem that can’t be punched or talked down. Futaba’s problems as it were dealt with her own split in thinking with her dealing with the worry that with Sakuto and Yuuma having girlfriends that she will eventually be left behind, being confident in her body while at the same time hating it for the unwanted attention that it draws and a love for her best friend that she knows will be rejected outright if she ever conveyed her feelings.

The is no villain to defeat and Sakuto having a girlfriend means that he can’t just solve her problems with romance.(Kirito needs to take note of that) Nor is the end of this arc a definitive solution for Futaba’s problems as it’s less about changing herself and more about coming to terms that her problems are part of who she is. I really like Sakuto’s approach to this as he plays the role more of a support for Futaba, reminding her that she has people who care and will go out of their way for her as well as reassuring her that one does not necessarily require to love oneself.

For this to come from the most grounded of the cast is certainly a surprise as she shows that mentally she may not be as strong minded as her appearance may suggest. Well in spite of that she’s strong enough to speak her feelings clearly to her friend during a fireworks show, even subverting that cliche of not being able to hear a confession over fireworks by her repeating it. Got to say I was somewhat hoping that he would accept it even if it would make Futaba’s conclusion to her arc weaker. Maybe later down the line that girlfriend of his gets an arc that makes her less deplorable. I got to say that it certainly was surprising to see just how much Fubata was thrown off balance by someone on the internet starting to try and blackmail her over her twitter photos. it really showed just how dangerous things can be with playing around on the net and seeing her just get so scared that she couldn’t be alone afterwards. As a few last notes, I hate that they are pulling this thing with Mai not being allowed to date even if it is a realistic part of the industry. It’s good that Mai consulted Sakuto on it but it is a bit annoying if it leads to her screentime getting cut down.

Seishun Buta Yarou wa Bunny Girl Senpai no Yume wo Minai – 07[Adolescence Paradox]

by AidanAK47, posted in Currently Watching:, Yarou wa Bunny Girl Senpai no Yume wo Minai

So we are on to the next arc and the next girl with adolence syndrome and while I give this series credit for breaking LN cliches, I feel like we could have the cast not be predominantly female. Well at least they are not all in love with the main character so I can give it a pass. Well unlike the cliffhanger last episode would suggest, the next girl is not Shoku but is instead our resident science girl, Futaba.(This is the second glasses girl I encountered recently who is named Futaba. Odd.) Our adolescent syndrome factor this time is that Futaba now has an identical clone whose going around living her life. The science explanation for this one happens to be quantum teleportation where in it seems that Futaba’s cell structure was duplicated and teleported somewhere else but this seems like a rather flimsy comparison to be blunt. The cause for her particular bout this time seems fairly obvious in that the past few episodes have established that she is madly in love with Sakuta’s friend but cannot make a move on him due to him having a girlfriend. Personally I think the guy should dump that trash he calls a girlfriend and get with science girl but perhaps this arc can give more development to his girlfriend so that I don’t want to punch her face in every time I hear her voice.

These two Futaba’s appear to be in the most part identical in both looks and personality. The defining difference her is that copy Futaba appears to be making an effort to pretty herself up a bit having switched to contacts and most noticeably, posting risque pictures to twitter. I admitly am having difficulty to understanding just why she is doing that but perhaps it’s some sort of confidence thing wherein she gets a thrill over people commenting on her looks.If I had to guess I would think that copy Futaba is the real one and has decided to take on a more aggressive stance to catching Kunimi’s attention but her mind is in two places about the idea which cause her to split in the first place.

Mai and Sakuto remain a pretty great couple with some excellent banter and I really like how their relationship is developing despite Mai not being the focus of the arc. But I really hope that small moment of her talking about her boyfriend to her producer doesn’t lead to what I think it might. I swear if I see some nonsense like her not being able to stay “Professional” due to having a boyfriend then I will have to strangle something. As a final note, the moment of ptsd Sakuto’s sister had when Mai’s phone rang really does leave a strong impression with how much her previous incident traumatized her. One moment is enough to show just why Sakuto threw his phone into the river. But of the love of god girl please stop with the incest jokes. I figured you aren’t serious but after long years of anime cliche I can never be 100% certain to rule out incest.

Zombieland Saga – 04-06[Warming Dead SAGA/The Nice Bird SAGA in Your Heart/Because It’s Sentimental SAGA]

by AidanAK47, posted in Currently Watching:, Zombieland Saga

Forgive me for my lack of coverage on this series but you may have guessed that my enthusiasm for it has died down considerably. I always felt that Zombieland Saga was in danger of losing what made it great in its first two episodes and sadly that has come to pass. This show has ultimately become that which it wished to parody. I will preface this by saying that at least the show hasn’t become bad for it’s still pretty watchable and decently enjoyable. But the spark that was in the first two episodes has sadly died out with this show is not having any more surprises under its sleeve. We have a bit of a formula created with each episode starting with Miyano the necroducer doing his jam and introducing the episodes gimmick. Sadly the freestyle performances are gone and we have gone straight idol much to my dismay. With the comedy generally being hijinks related to them nearly being found out to be zombies.

So far the group dynamic seems to have saved the show as it is somewhat interesting to see how they individually interact with whatever they face. Yugiri i find the most fascinating as she is essentially from a completely different time period and has more or less decided to just roll with whatever is going on. She has no real idea how to approach anything so she just goes with whatever she knows and hopes for the best. The latest episode does bring up an interesting point between the conflicting nature of old and new idol culture represented by Junko and Ai’s conflicting views. With Junko representing the old style of keeping an idol at a distance where Ai is more on the modern end with a Idol interacting with her fans on a more personal level. While the show looks like it’s going to push Junko towards Ai’s perspective but I gotta say that she’s got a pretty good point. The barrier between idol and fanbase is important as it’s a reminder of the positions of the two but with the advent of the internet and social media, idols are encouraged to close that gap between the two. Ultimately what AI is talking about is fostering parasocial relationships which isn’t a good thing because it’s predatory to the fanbase and absolutely life ruining for the idol.

There does seem to be more intrigue into the circumstances as well for despite the comedic nature of the show there are some oddly dark aspects here. In particular the means which the nercoducer keeps the girls there seems oddly restrictive with them not allowed access to the internet or otherwise. How he managed to get all this girls corpses as well is certainly a point of question as they all seem to have died in a variety of ways. With it revealed that Junko died in a plane accident while Ai went out in the most metal way possible by being struck by lightning while performing. If she was in a rock band instead of an idol group that would be the most legendary way to die. The next episode holds the cliffhanger of her possibly meeting her old idol group which is certainly a reaction I want to see. i mean dying by lightning and then returning from the dead to perform again? Seriously if Ai wasn’t an idol singer this would be one legendary badass comeback. I really do miss the spontaneous nature of the show as it looks like I won’t be getting the Thriller performance and the narrative does look to be going in a more sincere and serious direction than I would have liked. It’s my hope that at least it doesn’t downgrade itself further or maybe brings back a moment of the potential it had in the beginning before it reaches it’s end.

Seishun Buta Yarou wa Bunny Girl Senpai no Yume wo Minai – 05-06[All the lies I have for you/This world you chose]

by AidanAK47, posted in Currently Watching:, Yarou wa Bunny Girl Senpai no Yume wo Minai

Thus we hit the end of another arc and admit it wasn’t a particularly interesting one due to not much being at stake. The characters helped keep it from getting boring but the main conflict was obvious from the start and the solution even more so. So to get things in perspective, Koga and Sakato got stuck in a time loop due to Koga not being able to let go of her feelings after their fake relationship came to an end. Thus she pretended that she had no knowledge of the loop in order to delay the inevitable in a vain hope that maybe Sakuto might change his mind and not dump her ass for the main heroine. Sakuto was being unusually dense at the beginning of this arc but once things started looping he caught on fast as to what was really happening. This arc in particular falls flat in that when compared to the previous arc, it just comes across as low concern. Last arc had the danger of Mai literally fading from existence while this arc has the danger of…Koga falling out with her crappy superficial friends? Indeed the trigger to all this is Koga not wanting to lose friends who would drop her faster than a hot potato if she failed to answer a text message.(That makes the second girl who could get ostracised just for not answering a text message. Jesus life is stressful enough without having to micromanage your friends.)

I suppose we also have the predictable conclusion of her falling for Sakuto after playing pretend girlfriend so long which is a kind of consequence but it’s hard to truly feel sorry for her when she set herself up for failure in the first place. So this arcs ends with all of it getting rewound so it never happened and Koga learning to get over Sakuto while dropping her superficial friends for real ones. I can’t be the only one here who feels like this girl did nothing but waste everyone’s time, well at least the viewers time. Besides her addition to the cast I don’t think this arc added much of anything and we could have started from this episode two episodes ago without much having been lost. It really is thanks to Sakuto that this arc didn’t bore me as his interactions with the other members of the cast is still gold. Really I actually like this cast quite a bit so it made a less interesting arc still engaging because I genuinely cared about the characters on screen.

I have heard people argue about the superficiality of the supernatural elements with Science girl trying to explain them with scientific theory but I feel that the supernatural element was never meant to be that much of a focus but rather a narrative tool. I mean it’s literally a joke that the whole reason Sakuto could see that time was looping was due to him and her kicking each others butts in the first arc. Honestly as I mentioned in my Erased posts, you have two ways to go about this narrative. Either you go full Primer and spend a large amount of time fleshing out the mechanics of it(Though at the end of primer I still have no goddamn idea how the hell the time travel worked.) or you just hand wave it off. Though this series puts forth theory in an attempt to explain that mainly seems to be just a method of contextualizing the phenomena other than actually explain it. After all Laplace’s Demon isn’t really what’s going on here as Koga isn’t predicting the future, but rather rewinding it. The only real problem I see here is that they seemed to suggest that Koga has a degree of control over the power at the end despite them openly saying that she does so subconsciously. The way in which Koga rewinded time back to the first day doesn’t seem like a subconscious decision but rather a purposeful one. And does she still have this power? I don’t think it was ever made clear whether puberty syndrome stops when said girls problem is fixed as his sister still does seem to be under the effects of it. Wouldn’t this mean that Koga has the power to rewind time whenever she wishes? For that could really mess up the stakes for future arcs. Anyway it seems we are not down with time travel foolery just yet as Sakuto seems to have encountered the girl who helped his sister and him while also being his first love. Yet she appears to be younger than him and doesn’t recall him at all. Some Haruhi vibes are afoot here.

Goblin Slayer – 04-05[The Strong/Adventures and Daily Life]

by AidanAK47, posted in Currently Watching:, Goblin Slayer

Episode four is one of those episodes which has me at a loss about what to even say about it. I mean in this episode Goblin Slayer went and slayed some goblins and in other news the Pope is still catholic. I mean sure there was a unexpected interruption of a Orge leading them which much to Goblin Slayers disappointment, wasn’t a goblin. There is a certain catharious in that the Orge is extremely egotistical and finds Goblin Slayers dismissal of him to be a great insult. Indeed the thing that makes his remarks on Goblins being more troublesome than one Orge is the fact that GS means it wholeheartedly. To be fair he also has a point as while Goblins are low level they are far harder to get rid of than one orge, regardless of how powerful that orge may be.Points for creativity with GS using a teleport scroll to connect it to the bottom of the ocean, herby making the water pressure push so hard through the opening that it effectively becomes a makeshift water jet cutter. I am a little curious as to how a simple farm boy could understand enough to know what effect he would get if he attempted such a thing but knowing GS, he likely was only planning to use it to drown goblins and didn’t quite know about the force the water would gush out at.

Other than that, High elf took much distaste in the adventure with did seem like a dirty extermination job rather than a true adventure to high Elf adventures are like those of D&D campaigns with a bunch of friends having fun saving the world. Whereas with Goblin Slayer it’s literally nothing more than a job with nothing fun at all. Episode 5 on the other hand was more light hearted, being about some daily grind of two rookie adventures and Goblin Slayer running into people around town. These downtime episodes make for a good change of pace and it’s nice to have people fighting things other than goblins. It’s nice as well to just see Goblin slayer out of his element in ordinary conversations with people. His complete utter disregard of anything that isn’t goblins once again proves to be a good source of comedy and his bluntness with the other characters is rather endearing.

This does mark a turning point in the series where the darkness of the first episode eventually just becomes something more standard at least as far as I have read in the Light novels. This show could lose a lot of people for that and I admit myself that both the manga and light novel lost me when the first story arc ended. Animated it’s at least proving more entertaining as action does work better in a animated format but I admit that the story itself doesn’t really have much of an end goal. Basically is just Goblin Slayer and friends going to kill Goblins. However from the looks of things the anime is going to skip the last part of the first volume and instead jump straight into the second volume. This is a change that I heartily approve as I am certain they are planning to use the finale of the first volume to close out the series and in that regard it would make for an excellent conclusion to the story.

Seishun Buta Yarou wa Bunny Girl Senpai no Yume wo Minai – 04[There is No Tomorrow for Rascal]

by AidanAK47, posted in Currently Watching:, Yarou wa Bunny Girl Senpai no Yume wo Minai

We are at the start of a new arc and thankfully Mai hasn’t been tossed aside like a used napkin with events from the previously arc leading to her and the main pretty much establishing a relationship. I say pretty much cause they agreed to go out twice so really it’s just a matter of our main making sure they arc ends with them officially going out. Sadly the topic of this arc being Laplace’s Demon, sadly the story has taken one of the most boring and routine routes of representing it. Ladies and gentlemen, it’s a time loop. What could have been a decently original premise is unfortunately ruined by the fact that time loops have become rather common in current anime with me being able to name about five anime with time loops off the top of my head. (Sunday without god, Steins;Gate, Re;Zero, Haruhi and that magical girl anime you all know about.) It’s sad that with all the inventive ways they could have used the concept that this just feels uninspired as well as just not that interesting. The subject this time is that the girl that got her ass kicked somehow resets the day any time this boy confesses to her due to some thing with her friend liking the same guy.

Funny enough the time loop is broken effortlessly much to Sakutos despair as the loop ended in the worst possible way for him so he was counting on redoing it. The bad news is that the girl is pushing Sakuto to pretend to be her boyfriend to fend off the other guy and Sakuto doesn’t really have a choice because otherwise they could get stuck in another time loop. It’s particularly aggravating to have something get in the way of Sakuto and Mai when both are making good progress and here’s this girl barging in trying to steal the main heroine role. The saving grace here is that the character interactions are really fun and I don’t know what changed but the banter works a lot better than the previous arc. I also like that one of the girls I previously thought would be a future harem member for Sakuto actually is in love with Sakuto’s best friend. So I say his friend should just dump the obnoxious girl from the first episode and get together with kinky science girl.

The plot arc is a weak one but i admit to really warming up to the characters with Sakuto proving to still be a pretty fantastic lead. But props to Mai as well when she had a typical misunderstanding moment with walking in on Sakuto at the worst possible moment yet at episodes end she walks straight to his house to get an explanation of the situation. I was thinking there was going to be a long painful stretch with Mai acting cold to him over that so I greatly appreciate the girl cutting though the rom com nonsense and just getting to the heart of the matter.

Goblin Slayer – 03[Unexpected Visitors]

by AidanAK47, posted in Currently Watching:, Goblin Slayer

It’s a bit of a slower episode, being more about setting up whats to be the main cast for the remainder of the series if the opening is anything to go by. So I might as well take this time to address the recent controversy this series has spawned. In most cases I wouldn’t really bother as it’s dumb and as far as I am concerned current real world matters should not be a factor when judging fiction even when said real world matters involve the author. But I might as well throw my two cents into the matter as it’s tangentially related despite my opinion potentially riling people up.(Provided said people even read this but I digress) So the low down is this, it seems the first episode of Goblin Slayer got a lot of flak for the rape scene in episode one. It’s shock factor, it’s propagating rape culture, blah blah blah, all that nonsense. I am actually pretty surprised as the reaction to this as this is far from the only rape scene in anime with there being much worse examples to cite, I didn’t see people getting riled up about the first episode of Psycho Pass for one. Now before people start painting me as some rape hentai enthusiast I will point you to my preview on the header bar as well as my first impression when I very much express my distaste for the trashy aspect of rape in Goblin Slayer and I still stand by that.

For if someone was to point at the manga and say that it sexualises rape then I would honestly agree cause boy there are panels in the manga where you can’t tell if the artist is trying to shock you or turn you on. So I find it surprising that people are reacting to the anime with so much volatility when it’s handled the matter much much better by implying instead of showing. When it comes to fiction, nothing is off the table provided it is treated with the delicate care required to make it work for the story. So I honestly just laugh at those turning up their noses at what is essentially a PG level scene of a horrific but tamely shown act. One anime youtuber even stated that it would give Emergence a run for its money to which I say “WHAT? Are you serious?”…honestly it’s absurd. Alright I know the futility of asking you to not read Emergence but for your own sake, don’t. For the curious, imagine if the author of Mahou Shoujo SIte decided to write a hentai doujin. For those who do not know that anime, imagine watching a slow moving trainwreck where the end result is obvious but you must watch every painfully contrived stupid event that leads to that outcome. So when the expected ending happens all you are left with is time you will never get back and feeling like crap for the rest of the day. Save yourself the trouble. My point is this, there is a time for picking up the pitchforks and a time to grow thicker skin. The Goblin Slayer anime is clearly in the second category so that’s all I will say on this.

If it’s one thing I like about Goblin Slayer despite his lack of dimensions is that he’s got his gimmick and damn if he runs with it to hell and back. It was delightful seeing High Elf girl try to lay down some exposition about an incoming threat to the world while Goblin Slayer proceeds to not care in the slightest up until they mention that they need to kill Goblins. His obsession with Goblins is a great source of comedy both inside and outside the show that despite how literally faceless he is, he actually becomes rather loveable for his stoic dementor. Which makes this new party that has formed a good dynamic as they play off his seriousness with banter. I must say the banter was quite good between all of them despite their characters not being all that unique, most playing to the trope of their race. I could have down with the flat chest joke though cause wow, how many times have I heard that one and it wasn’t even funny the first time.

I also love the small additions to the series like the bit of exposition at the beginning about the gods of the world fighting through dice and the extra focus on the different reasons people have for the origin of Goblins with Goblin Slayers remark about them coming from the green moon sounds rather poignant. Another tidbit in this episode was the Witch woman who talked to Priestess and her odd but sadly annoying speech impediment. I do like what is considered an explanation for her odd way of speaking in that being a high level spellcaster, she can cast spells with a single word so she must constantly mind what she is speaking out loud for fear of accidentally blowing the place to hell. That said her voice tick wasn;t the only annoying thing about her as I could ahve done without the camera foxusing on her tits and those boob bounces. They even put in the “Boing” sound effect, bloody hell. I said it before but CGI Goblin Slayer Model aside, I say White Fox is doing a fine job with the adaption. May next episode feature many goblin deaths.

Zombieland Saga – 03[DEAD OR LIVE SAGA]

by AidanAK47, posted in Currently Watching:, Zombieland Saga

In some regard my last comment of calling this zombie love live in my last post could be considered prophetic as this episode definitely went the Love Live route. Unfortunately this is also the weakest episode of the show to date. Antics before the halfway point were still fun as that manager still cracks me up with the best moment being him trying to spell Guerilla in english, screwing up on the second letter and giving up by writing it in japanese. There were other good moments as well like Sakura being about to give a speech to inspire the others only to get slapped and for someone else to say what she was about to say. Along with regular legendary Yamada Tae antics.

But when compared to the previous episodes this one fell very short which is done to two things in my opinion. One was that this episode just took itself far too seriously when it came to the idol stuff which some have deemed parody but to me it was just played too straight to distinguish itself as such.The episode title may be a parody on love Live and even the waay the episode played out was rather like a Love live episode complete with training montage and full crappy CGI dance sequence. But the only thing that could consider it a parody was that this was their worst performance out of three with only a little girl caring to pay attention to them and the joke about the inspirational speech getting cut off by a slap and another inspiration speech.

It could be my particular hatred for Idol J-Pop driving this opinion but I prefered the freestyle performances of the last two episodes. It was a lot more spontaneous and hilarious then this rather routine idol episode. In fact this episode to me could mark a transition point which could kill this series for if they truly wish to push the idol aspect then this series could tank hard and lose all my goodwill. So next week we have a hot spring episode which isn’t what I would consider a good way to win back the audience but considering that the girls are undead and they made a joke about wow they are likely beginning to stink seeing as they are undead corpses I see the logic of having a hot spring episode. But hopefully it’s more than just a hot spring episode and we push this series away for the pitfall of becoming another idol show.

Seishun Buta Yarou wa Bunny Girl Senpai no Yume wo Minai – 02-03[On first dates, Trouble is essential/A world without you]

by AidanAK47, posted in Currently Watching:, Yarou wa Bunny Girl Senpai no Yume wo Minai

This show has certainly been like a Monogatari lite with it’s banter between its two leads and so far it has proven to be a watchable affair. Episode 3 honestly felt like an ending to the entire series when it was just the ending of the first novel. I mean the main couple has gotten together, the supernatural problem is resolved and essentially any plot point brought up has been tied up. But it looks like this story is more of a episodic arc nature wherein each novel has its own self contained story instead of a overarching narrative. So I honestly fear that Mai may get left in the dust by later arcs and new girls only for the title of this anime to become as irrelevant as Index is to the very show that’s named after a Certain Magical Index. What makes for an interesting aspect though is that it appears these arcs are named and based on a Scientific theory. I am certain I am not the only one who groaned at seeing yet another explanation of Schrodinger’s cat. It’s a pity because the first episode just threw it out there without explaining it and that was fine because every anime fan has gotten a Schrodinger’s cat infodump at some point. But I guess we can’t leave anyone who can’t google behind as the second episode goes into it with more detail. However I will give credit in that at least here the theory is actually quite relevant and even necessary to understanding how to solve Mai’s problem as the solution dealt with the nature of observation. Meanwhile other anime just use the theory to make characters appear smart or weakly justify the existence of supernatural elements.

The theme seems to be continuing as well with the next arc looking to be based on Laplace’s Demon theory which in shorthand is a thought experiment stating that if a demon knew the location and velocity of every atom in the universe then they would be able to calculate what would happen in the past and future. So our next girl is likely going to be able to see into the past or future but this might be treated differently as these powers are normally connected to trauma of some kind. In Mai’s case this was connected to her feeling exploited and used by her mother and superstar status. Then when she went on hiatus from show business and went to an ordinary school, people unconsciously avoided her due to her superstar status. But because the atmosphere of the school had decided to pretend that Mai didn’t exist, she in turn literally became unobserved by everyone thus causing her existence to become invisible. The logic behind why she became invisible to people outside of school is a bit shaky what with Mai somehow taking the atmosphere of the school outside with her which caused it to effect the entire world it seems but well it’s supernatural so perhaps logic can be bent to accommodate it for drama’s sake. The solution to all this appears to be having Sakuto force the school to acknowledge Mai’s existence with his public confession which was an event so striking and memorable that people couldn’t possibly ignore her existence anymore. You could argue that the problem wasn’t really the school but rather Mai’s own mental state which could have been the entire cause of her issue in the first place. It’s possible that Mai wanted to subconsciously disappear from public eye and once she began to literally disappear, seen her fate as inevitable. Thus Sakuto’s confession blew away those feelings and gave her reason to want to be seen again.

So Lapace’s Demon, considering the context I would think it would involve a degree of inevitably with it likely being about the girl in question knowing that she would die soon but sees no real escape from it. Though that is rather cliche so perhaps it could be something like a girl so lost in past and future that she no longer can distinguish the present? Admittedly I am curious just what route this show could go with the concept but again I must stress that this girl should not overtake Mai as main heroine. There are far too many light novels which go the route of having a protagonist win the heart of a girl in a volume only for the girl to get thrown to the sidelines while a new one enters the spotlight causing the series to be a quest for the protagonist to collect a harem. I would like to think that Sakuto is better than those guys as he doesn’t seem to be as flimsy or oblivious as they are when it comes to relationships. Either way, so far this show is good and my only real complaints would be that while I enjoy the banter between the two leads, I feel they could be a bit more expressive as sometimes it can feel like a snarky back and forth between two kuuderes. Also it seems that for times sake quite a lot was cut out from the story from the manga and light novel which made certain scenes less impactful. I would say this show needs to develop it’s cast as well for these first few episodes focused on Sakuto and Mai exclusively while everyone else is just kinda there. The only exception being the science girl who is likely going to be our exposition device for various scientific theories. Besides that this show is a decent watch but it needs something a little more to let it excel.

Goblin Slayer – 02[Goblin Slayer]

by AidanAK47, posted in Currently Watching:, Goblin Slayer

The opening to this series is surprisingly more melancholic than I would have expected. When the shows opening started I was waiting for it to break into heavy metal but it stayed low and actually does match the rather dark nature of the series itself. After all this is a series about a PTSD madman who dedicated his life to killing all goblins and unlike Eren Yeager has actually made decent progress on that resolution. With the first episode mainly acting as a introduction of our protagonist and antagonists, the second episode sets out to go into more depth with Goblin Slayers routine. There are changes from what i have read of the manga and I am not certain if it’s truer to the source light novels but I find White Fox are handling the material well. There are some misgivings among viewers over missing scenes such as the comedic moments but I find that White Fox are focusing more on Goblin Slayers cold and ruthless nature while having him slowly get more human as the story goes on. I still find it ridiculous that this guy can somehow have a harem of three(Incoming elf girl for four) girls despite having no real charm and talking about nothing besides killing Goblins. Besides with him constantly hunting Goblins I would suspect he would smell quite bad from all the goblin blood.

I like the way that White Fox is interlacing the Slayers speech about being like a Goblin from the Goblins perspective with his merciless slaughter of a goblin hideout and one thing about this series that I do like is that despite his effort purely being out of personal revenge as well as being looked down upon by other adventurers, Goblin Slayer has gained quite a bit of fame for his exploits due to the fact that he takes care of one of the greatest threats to normal villagers. The contrast between him and other adventurers is certainly interesting as the adventurers act very much like any rpg player would. Indeed when playing an rpg why would I bother with a quest that pays little, nets me barely any exp and has no real reward besides moral grandstanding. Thus Goblin Slayers mental trauma has effectively netted him much goodwill from the people despite him never doing it for them in the first place. Even with the Slayers backstory I appreciate that White Fox are toning down the rather problematic aspects of the story as we certainly do not need a full page spread of goblins raping the protagonist’s sister in order to understand that this was a horrific traumatic event which set his course of life from that moment forward. Nor do we need any shots of goblin rape to remind us that Goblins are horrific creatures that fully deserve every pain the Slayer bestows upon them. Be it getting stabbing in the head with a pickaxe or lit on fire. Actually on that note I might as well say that fire arrows are not actually a effective weapon in reality as the wind from the arrow traveling through the air would often extinguish the flame.

There are two points of contention with this adaption for me though with the biggest being White Fox’s odd decision to render Goblin slayer in both 2D and 3D. This isn’t necessarily a rant against CGI in anime as I have no problems with Goblins being CGI at points and understand the reasoning behind it. Having a single goblin model which you can copy and paste around the place is more cost effect that drawing fifty goblins. It’s the lack of consistency which annoys me and the opening scene of this episode is a prime example. In the opening scene Goblin Slayer is having a chat with his old childhood friend and constantly throughout this scene they switch between 3D and 2D. Perhaps they thought it was seamless but to anyone watching it’s like someone pasted a toy model to the screen with how much it fails to blend into surroundings.It’s iterating as it constantly takes you out of the show to see him change so suddenly so frequently and I don’t quite understand as to why it was needed. Making a walk cycle for his childhood friend was no problem but making Goblin Slayer walk is too much trouble? Or is it that they don’t want to ruin the fanservice girl because boy is this big titted farm girl been showing a lot of that. Her very first scene isn’t even her face but instead her nude body after waking up and we got an unnessary scene of her bathing later as well which I just find strange. Fanservice is certainly nothing new but in a series like this you can’t help but feel it’s a forebringer of darker tidings as any cute girl is marked as a potential target for future goblin rape. I am just saying that in a series which features a awful lot of rape, isn’t trying to turn on your audience rather distasteful? That could lead to some rather bad fetishes developing for some people. Either way i wonder what will happen next week? WIll Goblin Slayer kill more Goblins? Well Yeah, most likely.