Category: Currently Watching:

Irozuku Sekai no Ashita kara – 03 [No Rain, No Rainbow]

by SuperMario, posted in Currently Watching:, Irozuku Sekai no Ashita kara

Three episodes in, Hitomi finally joins the Photography/ Art club, talking about deliberate pacing here. Irozuku remains a show that still hasn’t totally impressed me. The main issues aren’t in the slow tempo, however. It’s more that Irozuku has a fair amount of cliche plot and predictable storytelling that it fails to grab me as much as it could. Take the Photography members and their love interests, for example. In a P.A.Works fashion there are hints of some potential pairings within this group, although whether or not the president Shou will get interested in Hitomi remains to be seen. The clue we had at the end of episode 2 when he looks at her doesn’t get any development at all this week, which I prefer it that way. Since coming to this world, Hitomi’s mind has always been occupied by the colorful drawings of Yuito, thus some distraction like a third wheel’s romance won’t bode well, narratively speaking.

The main plot of this episode 3 involving Hitomi looking for a suitable club and then assists the Photography club for their events. Due to her colorblind, she takes a wrong star sand, but she still manages to walk on water by her own magic power before her friend Kurumi reminds her so. That moment where she walks in the fog sure is breathtakingly, really, on a production level I have little to no complain. Her friend Kurumi in this episode also walks (this time figuratively) a thin line between ‘tolerable’ and ‘too much’. The big question mark will be the first appearance of her grandma Kohaku – a character whose presence always felt despite she’s currently studying abroad. If I have to guess right now I’d expect her to be airhead and pushy like Haruhi Suzumiya and it’s her who will drives the plot forward from here to the finish line. The question remains whether she’d become too dominant that she’d sweep everyone away, including Hitomi. Hitomi, this is your show, puts more effort to claim it!

After that dreadful fall (which eventually leads to the club’s cleaning pool as penalty), she reveals to Yuito about her colorblindness. He figures it out anyway since he remarks on how different she uses her color. Thus comes an understated but rewarding suggestion from him, join the photography club for monochrome projects. Based on the last event, it’s clear that Hitomi doesn’t lack magic power, it’s her inconfidence and her detachment that mainly cause it so hopefully, little by little, with the help of her friends (and grandma), she’ll come to learn to love herself and love the world around her.

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.

Thunderbolt Fantasy 2 – 03 [Princess of Cruelty]

by SuperMario, posted in Currently Watching:, Thunderbolt Fantasy

Now that’s more like it. Until you see the puppets’ blood-squirting and head-rolling you know that Thunderbolt Fantasy is back in full force. On a narrative side, this season has been more straightforward than the first. The hero’s and villain’s sides are pretty clear-cut so far, and with this episode the last member of the promotion art claims his first appearance. This dude Di Kong is a saint. Well, nearly since he’s a travelling monk who help cure the toxic for no gain, even putting himself in danger. He makes one hell of an impression, but my gut tells me that he’s the guy not to be taken lightly. There’s still one missing piece in the grand scheme so far, and that is Cruelty-hime boss, Kasei Meikou. He’s the guy who is so fearsome that Shang Bu Huan had to cross the Wasteland of Spirits in order to protect the swords index (okay, official term Sorcerous Scoll Index) from him (guess crossing the Wasteland of Spirits becomes trendy lately, huh?). Really, I believe this yin yang monk fits all the bill as the final boss for this whole affair.

At first, I took it that Princess Cruelty (I might stick to that name to avoid confusion) and the sneaky Xiao Kuang Juan are on the same team. This episode makes it clear that they are on different agenda and don’t necessary see each other as an ally. Well, they do have a same goal for now (kill our poor Shang Bu Huan) but their super-ego prevents them from seeing eye to eye to the matter. Thunderbolt Fantasy also makes damn sure to let us know how cruel this General is. He blames all his killing to the innocent villagers to Shang Bu Huan, the cruel thing is how he sees his actions as “justified”. That action even ticks our “always cool” Gui Niao off. But so far, it’s interesting to see how much of a wild card Gui Niao is. Unlike the people in this side who already acquainted to the legendary Lin Xue Ya, these villains from Xi You know next to nothing about him and thus, the more arrogant they act the more they become Gui Niao’s plaything. One thing to remember, always keep this guy amused. Who knows what on earth we would do if he gets bored.

Thankfully, when it comes to Shang Bu Huan, Gui Niao’s definitely interested. As for our main hero, he barely makes it with the toxic from Princess Cruelty. The other running thread involves her and her temptation to use the sword Seven Blasphemous Deaths. It has such a strong aura that it tempts her to use it several time. Apart from “it has mind-control effect” and “it’s one of the most badass sword) we still know next to nothing about it. Which is good since now I am hyped. Now that our two leads Gui Niao and Shang Bu Huan finally meet (to the dismay of the latter), things would get more snappy soon. In truth, I kinda miss the characters bouncing-off each other that made the first season a gem to watch, but I hope that now that Thunderbolt Fantasy finishes setting up the new characters and the main conflict, it’ll delve more for characters’ interaction and killer one-liners.

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.

SSSS.GRIDMAN – 02 [Restoration]

by SuperMario, posted in Currently Watching:, SSSS.GRIDMAN

Me blogging a Trigger show? Well, I’ll be damned myself but life does take some strange turn. Not that I’m a Trigger naysayer but if I’ll be honest, Trigger shows tend to rub me in a wrong way. The studio is seen as the successor of Gainax for one thing, and the overhyped reactions from anime fandom regarding their shows certainly don’t help. I always find their outputs full of cliche with one-note characters, along with expressive animation. So my point is that after being extremely down with Darling in the FranXX, another original anime that takes inspiration from Power Ranger-style Tokusatsu show didn’t interest me at all. But GRIDMAN caught me completely off guard. The most prominent thing about it so far, and that’s what makes it different from the rest of the pack, is that it’s very offbeat – to the point it’s risk sacrificing the audience’s involvement. For me though, it works in the service of the story and it makes the ride wholly unexpected and rewarding.

It starts with Yuta waking up with an amnesia. It’s a well-worn trope to the bone but here, amusingly every single character treats it like no big deal. This sense of a lucid dream where you can’t tell apart what is dream and true is further added up by many strange events that function almost like a dream: its kaiju monsters standing in the middle of the city, but no one but Yuta sees it or the school is back to normal after the big destruction the day before. What I’m impressed the most so far in GRIDMAN is the commanding direction. Many beats sometimes stay for almost too long, but until much later should we know how these scenes are integral to the narrative. Take the scene happened early in episode 1 where Akane (the blue hair girl) offers Yuta a bread roll that is immediately swept away by the random ball for example. GRIDMAN literally pauses on the scene for few seconds, creating a deadpan affect. Until episode 2 should we learn that the single moment IS the reason for the kaiju outbreak and the disappearance of the girls in second episode. That also explains some weird shot placements to those girls earlier.

Similarly, the dialogues are offbeat as hell, but they all complement to the tone of GRIDMAN. at one point, Yuta’s friend Utsumi says, “the situation hasn’t sunk in yet”, everything happened so far function with the same sentiment. This works in both good and bad ways. On the positive side, the air of mystery is still there and we get a clear sense that everything is more than what it seems. Moreover, GRIDMAN nails it at the deadpan tones that occasionally gives me a chuckle or tow. The appearance of Samurai Calibur for example, or how we eventually learn that he’s the grand soce sword for Gridman is hilarious. On the other hand, I could see why the audience can’t feel personally resonate to it. It’s decided so. But what it lacks in term of realistic dialogue or plot, it makes uo by the strong visual presentation. They communicate more by glances rather than words. By Rikka’s look we can clearly see her affection to Yuta, although the show smartly doesn’t play it up so far. A single image of Akane’s room with piles of trash and glass cupboard of kaiju monsters inform you more than enough about her character. In a sense, the first 2 episodes of GRIDMAN can be seen as an anti-Trigger, it’s understated in tone and storytelling and instead relies on visual to enrich its world and characters. If GRIDMAN can maintains its tone it could very well be the surprise hit of the season.

And did I mention the general plot of GRIDMAN? In an essence, it’s a battle between a mecha Gridman piloted by Yuta and Kaiju monsters created by Akane. As simple as that. The trick here is the unconventional way it tells the story.

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.

Zombieland Saga – 02[I ♡ HIP HOP SAGA]

by AidanAK47, posted in Currently Watching:, Zombieland Saga

Zombieland Saga is madness. Pure insanity that could be complete genius or absolute idiocy. So for those who haven’t heard this anime is not the zombie apocalypse show that was initially thought, as a matter of fact the zombie apocalypse footage in the trailer was in fact a video the producer showed the girls to illustrate what happens to zombies if humans realised that they existed. No, Zombieland Saga is not that kind of show for it is an idol show. An idol show whose idols do screamo death metal and scare the hell out of people when they walk around at night. Also our idols happen to be the living dead who subside on squid for reasons unknown. I truly wish I could have been at the pitch meeting for this anime and shake the hand of the man mad enough to greenlight it. This is truly why I love anime as this is the kind of story that could only see the light of day here and not to mention, actually be pretty good.

It’s fairly safe to say that the voice actor for the producer is having a real fun time Houyon Kyouma-ing it up and his interaction is pretty damn funny. Particularly when someone calling him on his lies and all he can do to respond is throw a tantrum. What is real goals are at this point certainly seem elusive as it’s hard to tell if he has any agenda at all or is just doing this for kicks. There are mysteries that he refused to elaborate on like how the girls became zombies in the first place which he dodged by just saying to watch a zombie movie, which is pretty amusing considering that most zombie movies do not elaborate at all on what actually causes the outbreak. There is also the matter of the legendary Yamada Tae who is the only zombie not to wake up, seems to be the first zombie that the producer brought to life based on her designation of the number 0 and that she is literally known only as the legendary Yamada Tae without any info on what in particular that makes her legendary. He doesn’t even state as to why an idol group would save the saga region or even why he is interested in doing so in the first place. But then again this guy can’t seem to decide what the bands name is and just throws them on a stage with little in the way of preparation. both times which somehow worked out

I died when they started rapping on stage as I watched this show go from Love Live to 8 mile out of nowhere. The manager beatboxing, the courtson putting in a beat with a shamisen and Sakura bobbing to the music while having a rap battle a undead fromer motorcycle gang leader who is pissed cause her tamagotchi died. All of it had me smiling ear to ear and not to mention the rap actually sounded good despite it being used for the plot for Sakura to finally get the girls on board with the idol idea. So the question is whether this show will eventually have them performing idol songs or are they just going to jump from genre to genre? Cause I hope it’s the latter option because it is far too entertaining to just have them spontaneously jump into unfamiliar genres and if they ended with a version of Michael Jackson’s Thriller then…well greatness shall have been achieved. But admittedly that does run the risk of making this show rather formulaic when surprise is it’s greatest factor and this episode did follow a similar plotline to the first episode. As a last note I hear that Funimation have decided to simudub this series for this season and god have mercy on them. This second episode is going to be a nightmare to dub but hopefully they can pull it off and hopefully the actresses they got can rap as well as sing provided they dub it and don’t just switch to japanese for the rap. So will the girls finally sing an idol song next time? Will the legendary Yamada Tae wake up? Will they finally decide on a group name? Will Saki get over the death of her tamagotchi? Find out next time on zombie love live.

Irozuku Sekai no Ashita kara – 02 [I Can’t Stand Magic]

by SuperMario, posted in Currently Watching:, Irozuku Sekai no Ashita kara

It’s always neat to see a work that feels every inch a P.A Works production. When you think about the studio, you’d immediately associate them with their original shows, chief among them ‘Mature women in workplace’ unofficial trilogy, and The Eccentric Family (I consider the latter their pinnacle work). For the last 5,6 years the studio has consistently built up their reputation, resulted in them having their own aesthetic lense and a great amount of control over their outputs. Come Irozuku, an anime that, while doesn’t totally blow me away, still complement many strengths of P.A Works as one of the best anime studio around. The production, for example, is simply stunning. Not only Irozuku excels on characters movement and expression, it has a drop-dead gorgeous and rich background designs and wonderful aesthetic. Moreover, it’s that the staffs know how to tell the story visually. The monochrome visual from Hitomi informs us a great deal of her psychological issues. Or the final moments in this episode, where the photography captain Shou sees Hitomi performing magic alone; that moment alone conveys more emotions than thousand words can describe.

With this second episode, I start to warming up on Hitomi as our main character. In the premiere, she’s clueless. She’s so passive that other characters or the plot have to carry her along. In this episode 2, at least I can see her drive and I can relate to many of her issues. She’s attracted to a boy in her school Yuto, or to be more precise, she’s attracted to his drawings. The paintings literally come into colors in Hitomi’s eyes and she wants to see that again. That’s pretty relatable in her situation and again, points for P.A.Works for their great touch of displaying the colors she sees (it’s not realistic colors but is more colorful and painting-like). Their first encounter is awkward, as it should be, with all the break-in affair and friends’ gossips. This uneasiness comes to the point where Yuto asks her to perform real magic to prove her story, and in turns brings up Hitomi’s another issue (look up to this episode’s title). In the end, however, they share a pretty intimate moment, where he kindly asks her to perform magic again sometimes. The bigger question I have for now is that how Yuto fits in 60 years from now. I’m not convinced he’s Hitomi grandpa or even anyone that she knows at that timeline. So maybe, just maybe, he will be gone at some points in the future? Is that Hitomi’s mission all along to save/ learn about him?

While Hitomi comes to school where her grandma goes is as tropey a plot point as it can get, there are few things that make her school trip a treat to watch. First is the yet-to-be-seen Kohaku, her grandma about her age. While she isn’t physically there, her presence and her energy are still felt in this town, to the extent that Hitomi’s classmate treats her like they’d treat a cranky lion. It’s a matter of time until Kohaku makes a first appearance (I guess maybe the next one or 4th episode), but her playful antic will add more energy to Irozuku and until then we can learn better the reason why Hitomi got sent back in this timeline in a first place. The second factors are the supporting cast, who are all members of photography club (clue for more gorgeous arts). They have an easy and natural chemistry and they help bringing Hitomi to enjoy the school life more.

We also get a glimpse of Hitomi’s magic and while it’s underwhelming, it’s not due to her lack of power, but her refusal to use it. It will be interesting to see how Hitomi eventually opens up to use more of her magic, at the same time to open up with friends and sees more color to her life. It’s a conventional growing up tale, I know, but so far Izoruku nails its slow-burning pace, and conveys emotional beat not by the melodrama (*cough VioletEvergarden *cough) but by the strengths of its visual storytelling. While Irozuku certainly has its lows, there’s still a lot to look forward to based on these first two episodes.

Thunderbolt Fantasy 2 – 02 [The Stolen Sorcerous Blades]

by SuperMario, posted in Currently Watching:, Thunderbolt Fantasy

Fun fact, I had just been to Taiwan and while in their local old bookstores and DVDs, I saw a section of puppetry animation dvds in the corner of the store (should’ve bought one now that I think about it). Apparently wuxia puppetry has a niche market in Taiwan, and so I’m glad that me, along with many anime fans all over the world, are aware about it. Thunderbolt Fantasy plays a huge role of bringing it to mainstream attention. The first season offered a refreshing aesthetic and playful characters that you won’t see anything like it in this medium. This show, I’d argue, help redefining the endless boundary of anime medium. To those of you who complain that Thunderbolt Fantasy isn’t animation, you’re technically right (read my old post how I break down about its technicality), but I’m on the side who consider that this wuxia fool is every inch an ANIME. It’s just not a style you’d see anywhere else.

The first thing I have to note on this second season is that you don’t really need a prior knowledge of the first season, so for anyone who want to go for a ride you can just jump right in. The first two episodes do a decent job of setting up the main conflicts, at the same time they suffer in term of pacing because of it. There’s just way too much exposition with very little awesome battle sequences, which make the story so far a little underwhelming. We pick up some time after the end of the first season, but with the issues we all know will come like a ticking bomb. Our Shang Bu Huan has an index of 36 insane legendary swords (think of flashy-sounding name and weird affect sword in Katanagatari x 36) and naturally it’s just too much of a burden for him to keep them with him. So our lead seeks assistance from the formidable Xian Zhen fortress, known as the most secure fortress in the side of the land. Things go awry very quickly because, as far as action show goes, the moments you leave the treasure to others’ hands, it’s a guaranteed that you’d spend the rest of the series cleaning up the mess. One thing that I didn’t expect is how quickly the tide turns against Shang Bu Huan.

For this installment we have a whole new set of supporting cast, all of them who come from Shang Bu Huan’s hometown and having crossed the Wastelands of Spirits. So far, it’s interesting that they fit in different roles in this ongoing conflict. On the one hand, we have red-haired Lang Wu Yao and his demonic talking pipa who is the blabbermouth that appear to be our lead’s ally. Well, for now they are but I can see the status quo change quickly once we  learn their true motive. As opposed to Shang Bu Huan we have the Princess of Cruelty Xie Yingluo, who tends to use tricks and poison to do the dirty job. On the other spectrum, we have the general Xiao Kuang Juan who (by coincidence) was escorted by our Gui Niao AKA the guy who could not be trusted. Gui Niao is curious as soon as he hears the name “Shang Bu Huan”, and so far this side of the battle is more high mind and conversational than his friend’s counterpart.

One other major development in these first two episodes is that Xie Yingluo manages to steal two legendary swords out from her half-piece sword index. Thunderbolt Fantasy makes it pretty clear that sword-skill wise she can’t compare to Shang Bu Huan. However, with the assistance of The Night of Mourning – a sword of mind-control, she turns all the helpless villagers against him and intoxics him. It’s the other sword (which we haven’t known the name or its affect yet), however, that proves to be more fearsome. I’d say that sooner or later that sword will fall into the wrong hand. Although the trademark over-designed and mannerism help making each of new character stand out, it’s sad to note that so far they’re more like chess pieces rather than full-fledged characters. The campy fun is still apparent, though.

Satsuriku no Tenshi – 08 – 12

by AidanAK47, posted in Currently Watching:, Satsuriku no Tenshi

This isn’t the end of Satsuriku no Tenshi as there are still four more episodes to come though this show has certainly been taking it’s time for the past few episodes. The general focus has been on Zack getting mortally wounded and Rachel traveling back down the floors to find medicine for him. All the while being tested by the priest who looks to be using this journey to judge her character. While the journey up has been a show of Zack and Rachel growing as people, the journey down for Rachel is much like the degeneration of her mental state, hinting that her true character is of a much darker nature. The priest points out to her that she doesn’t truly care for anyone other than herself and many of her actions supposed to help Zack are really all for herself. All culminating in Rachel’s faith in god getting destroyed and effectively deciding that Zack is her god. I had hoped that the journey down would serve to characterise the floor masters better as they all tended to be fairly onenote and cartoonishly over the top but sadly they remain one note and over the top. It’s a bit hard not to see the last few episodes as a slog considering that not much truly happened in them and all that was really accomplished with Rachel having a slight change of mind and saving Zack. I will say though that I rather liked the flashback of Zack and the old man that took care of him as it reminded me heavily of Frankenstein where a blind old man took care of Frankenstein while being completely unaware of what he was.

Episode twelve is where things feel like they are moving again as we have a floor that looks to be built to look exactly like Rachel’s family home. Something which causes Rachel much distress because the priest planted the idea that “God” does not like unclean things and she worries that if Zack were to truly find out who is is then he would abandon her. The final revelation is something which doesn’t come as much of a surprise at this point with all the foreshadowing it’s been doing but Rachel looks to have killed her parents gruesomely and potentially was a floor master like Zack who killed anyone who enters her floor. it does make me wonder just how messed up Rachel is with her sewing her parents together but considering how this series has handled people in flashbacks so far i have no doubt that Rachels parents were also one dimensional assholes with no moral compass. There is also the revelation that the priest built this place in order to test people which seems to hint that this show takes place in reality and that would make a lot of things highly questionable. The thing that excuses a lot of the game logic and unrealistic aspects of this show is the hint that this may be taking place in some kind of purgatory or afterlife. If it actually takes place in reality then a hefty amount of plot holes are going to appear and i hope this show avoids that conclusion. For one the amount of blood Zack shed was enough to kill twenty people so if it turned out this was actually reality then that would be pushing anime logic too far.

While this isn’t the end of the series, this would be a good time to look over my opinion of the series as a whole which hasn’t changed too much from previous assessment. Again, Satsuriku no Tenshi is interesting but deeply flawed. I like what it is trying to do and what it is trying to be but it’s execution is certainly lacking. While the main characters have nice chemistry and decent depth, the rest of the cast is just insane to comical degrees or unabashedly evil. The story can’t hide the moon logic of it’s source with it having puzzle solving with supernaturally constructed puzzles and Rachel sometimes turning into a makeshift Macgyver just to push things forward. Now while i do say this show is interesting, it is more from a objective perspective rather than personal interest. This show can be rather dull sometimes and as episodes went on I felt more and more detached to the goings on of the story. But I do really like the flawed moral nature of the protagonists and a willingness to drop into darker subject matter.(When it doesn’t go too far and just becomes silly.) I would like to see an anime attempt this again with something that maybe isn’t so tied to Rpg Maker gameplay and more surreal in its approach to horror. For as flawed as this show is, at least it’s trying something different (and not completely failing at it like Occultic;Nine) that the other shows like “I’m a high school boy isekaied to a fantasy land to become a magical overpowered mage and idol singer with everyone bowing at my awesomeness and wanting to mate like rabbits while in a club with cute girls drinking tea. ”