Category: Currently Watching:

Classroom of the Elite – 08 [Abandon All Hope, Ye Who Enter Here]

by SuperMario, posted in Classroom of the Elite, Currently Watching:

While watching this episode, I had some serious flashback towards Youkoso’s premiere episode, where the plot likewise just drifted around the sea until that final reveal kicked in. It’s basically a set up episode but it’s rather astonishing that they manage to bring very little to the table, while cramming up its bad tendencies: the unnecessary fanservice; its ridiculous settings (a luxurious cruise ship, full-on service for free? But; of course) and its even more ridiculous characters, most notably The Perfect Specimen Kouenji. Nah, I don’t want to sound like a broken record either so let’s just roll with what Youkoso offered in this episode, and I’ll try to humor myself because this thing sure knows how to embrace its absurdness to the fullest.

The end of this episode promises a Lord of the Flies style, where all the kids are left on their own on a deserted island, form groups and try to survive, without any actual killing and death counts of course. Personally, I consider it more akin to Battle Royale, here as a group rather than an individual, try to cancel each other out. They haven’t announced the full rules yet, so it’s hard to speculate more what are the conditions to survive, but I found one interesting aspect nonetheless. “Form a group”, it could be any member from different class, right? It’s a given that these kids will pick out their classmates to form the group because of trust issues, but if the rules don’t specify that condition – where they have no utter motive to go against each other; should they form a collective group from different class rather than stick on the same class? I know for sure that Class-C Ryuen will use this opportunity to backstab Horikita, and I know that Perfect Specimen will be involved somehow (otherwise he wouldn’t have showed up that consistency in this episode). I’m rather curious to see how Ichinose from class B will use her networking to advance in this particular test.

Otherwise, we have more struggles from Class-D, them being the lowest class not only in term of their academic ability, but in their social status as well. I don’t like the fact that the show indeed paints them like one. Keep babbling meaninglessly about their favorite girls’ first name is one thing, straight out behaving like “low-life” dudes who have no idea about the name of the food and restaurant manner is an entirely other thing. Why does Youkoso need to try so hard on that front and not even try at all in other aspects? It feels rather obvious as well that the “one person who couldn’t join the test due to illness” will show his/her identity in the upcoming test because it smells fishy like a fish sauce. Also the girl from Class C who opposed Ryuen, Ibuki would potentially team up with our leads because she has an agenda now and isn’t enemy of an enemy is a dear best friend?

Ayanokouji basically does nothing in this episode except being threatened by his homeroom teacher (that message the school received from “certain man” was… really straightforward). I’m still amazed that despite he’s trying his best to become a Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Invisible Phoenix or whatever, PEOPLE STILL NOTICES HIM, so what is the point of hiding his true nature then? I do like the fact that he considers his time studying here a “freedom”, so I guess his time before getting into this school was hellish at best. Kushida again shows her true face (you know it when that girl suddenly speaks in different voice and all that shit, like she’s being possessed), just to makes damn sure to let Ayanokouji know that she doesn’t want to be left alone right after she come in. You gotta be patient, Ayanokouji, don’t run so fast. I like it that she reveals her true face from time to time but this revealing is rather… useless. If something like this can make her showing her true color then it won’t be long before the rest of the class have a real taste of her evilness. She really wants to get everyone’s approval though, so she’d try harder to get close to Horikita and Ayanokouji. Not that I particularly give a damn anymore. Whatever floats this sinking boat, mate.

Re:Creators -19 [Wrapped in Kindness]

by HelghastKillzone, posted in Currently Watching:, Re:Creators

If you thought Re:Creators had some big plot moments over the last two weeks, this episode just straight up racks up the series’s biggest body count by wiping out three creations from the storyline. While the last episode had some hilarious fourth-wall breaking jokes mixed with in with the action, it’s all serious business here as Selecia’s and Alice’s come into their abrupt end. Starting off with Alice, she was truly the muscle-head that Meteora described in the recap episode with the way she got removed from existence. While she did eventually figure out that Altair was the culprit behind Mamkia’s death and had a half-decent betrayal plan, I can’t ignore the sheer stupidity of punching herself to death after experiencing the firsthand effects of reverse causality. Like Altair said, she isn’t the main character of this story and her second-rate ending really slam that fact home. If I was her creator, I would also be balling my eyes in the hallway at how my own creation would stupidly allow her quest of revenge go unfilled.

While having any creation be erased is a big deal in a show like this, having a pair of characters from the same story out in a blaze of glory is a very bold move. Before their demise, I was reminded of how similar Selecia acts to Mamkia’s fight at the bridge as she tried to play both sides before committing to death by suicide pact contasy of the Infinite Giga Machine’s repulsive wave. I would have like to see Charon to have more development behind his tiredness of fighting but with ten other creations, their creators and the audience already hogging the spotlight, it comes as no surprise that he comes and go within an episode. There was also the matter of Selesia’s professing her love for Charon as it felt kinda hollow as we don’t see the comradery that the in-universe light novel series builds up. At the very least, Selesia went out with a bang as opposed to the self-inficted death of Alice.


After everything has been said and done, three creations have removed from storyline along with two and a half super fighting robots. Altair now stands alone against the remaining forces but if her one-sided fight with Alice is any indication, it going to be a real rough ride to dislodge her from her goals of world destruction. The very nature of Altair’s powers are exponentially driven by her fan base and I’m just waiting for that part for her to pushes a power out of her ass and completely wipes the floor with everyone else. Perhaps Magane and Sota can do something with their own unique powers of creation and causality because all the conventional upgrades of Meteroa’s team isn’t doing jack shit. In any case, reaching this point where all the plotlines and buildup explodes into a cluster bomb of a mess has been quite a long journey but we’re finally getting everything that Re:Creators promised it would be.

Fate/Apocrypha – 09[Hundred’s of flames and Hundreds of Flowers]

by AidanAK47, posted in Currently Watching:, Fate/Apocrypha

Now this is the kind of quality this show should be delivering. Very good, fights have more weapon clashes and we are getting some great character moments here. The opening scene made me actually want another Fate Prequel to cover the third Holy Grail War because it seems like some great things went down there. I mean for one it looks like Darius summoned Fionn mac Cumhaill and I do love seeing more Irish representation in Anime. I wonder if we can get Urobuchi and Nasu on board for a Fate/Zero 2. But then again it would be rather nice so see Type Moon move away from Fate and make a new goddamn IP for once. Still this is one of the few episodes that really captured what I loved about the parts of the novel I read. The epic battles and the servant interactions. I love Shakespeare strolling in and just commenting on what’s going on and Mordred having an easygoing chat with Astolfo before the two get ready to battle. As well as Chiron and Achilles testing each other’s skills. Fight are going on all over the place so the improvements in the fight animation was much appreciated. Finally this is beginning to live up to my first expectations. The Sieg portions were still boring as hell but at least everything else worked so damn well. Now they just need to keep this quality going.

Definite highlight of the episode was Fran’s breakdown and backstory. It’s things like this that I love this franchise for, taking a historical figure and humanising them. As far as execution goes that scene was done perfectly, barring some rather janky animation. Showing Fran’s memories with an old time silent film filter fit the mythos and gave it so much style. So Frankenstein’s monster’s story is different in the Fate universe than it is in the Frankenstein movies. However oddly enough it is closer to that of Mary Shelly’s novel. The general beats follow that of the novel in that Frankstein creates a monster and then rejects it. however in the novel it was due to it being hideous whereas here it appears Frankenstein was more revolted by the creatures mentality. Frankenstein wished to recreate the perfect humans, Adam and Eve. Thus Fran was supposed to be Eve which is rather interesting because there is a servant in this war that wishes to recreate Adam. However it seems Fran’s infant mind and general lack of empathy caused the Doctor to see her as nothing more than a monster and dismantle her.

She rebuilt herself and proceeded to hunt down Frankenstein in order to get him to build another like her. However no matter what lengths she went to(Even going as far to kill those around him, including his fiancee), Frankenstein always refused her. Her journey ended at the north pole where Frankenstein dies after years of running away from her and in her despair she killed herself in a funeral pyre. There are details changed here and there but overall this is indeed the story of Frankenstein’s monster though tailored to be more sympathetic towards the monster. It’s this history that makes this scene have so much impact. For Shakespeare provided an illusion of the only thing she ever wanted and that drove her mad for in her heart she knew it wasn’t real. For once Fran isn’t some weird moe addition to the story but a genuine character in her own right. Now if only the other characters can get such treatment.

I also really like how they handled Astolfo and his dilemma that he couldn’t take down the Gardens of Babylon because he’s fighting with a handicap. He has some sort of noble Phantasm that packs serious power but seems to require a hefty amount of mana. Thus if he uses it then he would end up killing a large amount of Homunculi from power drain. Of course at this point Sieg has freed to the Homunculi so he couldn’t use it if he wanted to but it does show that Astolfo isn’t willing to compromise on his ideals for a easy win. Having him and Mordred take each other was great as these two talking is amusing particularly on how easygoing they are about this fight to the death. These two honestly feel like two friends having a playful fight up until Mordred starts mocking Seigfried for dying for a silly reason. Astolfo doesn’t even disagree with her but nonetheless doesn’t take kindly to her mocking him for it. The thing is and this is something which Apocrypha has been criticised for, neither of these two are evil or in the wrong. You can see where both are coming from and I rather like that moral grey aspect of the series. Some have said that this aspect makes it hard to know who to root for as neither side seems to have good intentions.

On surface level it seems like we should be rooting for the red squad as the Black squad are the whole reason for this war in the first place. However the leader of the red squad Shirou is a shifty individual you can’t quite trust. At the same time the leader of the black squad is a former Nazi and clearly isn’t someone you want to win either. Then within these teams you have genuine good people on both sides who are fighting for their own agendas. It’s nice to have shades of grey and not a clear cut hero and villain but likewise I do understand how people may have a hard time getting behind it as characters goals seem to be rather scattered. In Fate/Zero despite having a large roster of characters their end goals are more or less the same, win the Holy Grail War. Here we have an even larger character roster and to most winning the Grail War is a secondary Objective. In fact out of what we could consider our main characters, Seig is just looking for some meaning in his life, Joan is acting as referee by obligation, Sisigou is just doing his job and Astolfo does whatever he wants to. Perhaps as the servants drop out this story could become more focused and strengthen as a result.

Made in Abyss – 08[Survival Training]

by AidanAK47, posted in Currently Watching:, Made in Abyss

The survival training didn’t quite seem so bad in retrospect or maybe Regu and Riko got off lucky. The way Ozen put it, it seemed like they would be fighting for their lives constantly. But they basically had to take down a hippo like creature and forage for food. We did get quite a bit of info on how time in the Abyss appears to work differently from the surface as well as Ozen talking about the three active white Whistles. Considering they got extra detail it’s likely the next white whistle the two will encounter is Bondrewd the Novel while the other two are likely to not appear in this seasons runtime. While Ozen turned out to be a good ally despite appearing villainous, I think Bondrewd isn’t going to be quite so friendly. After all if Ozen wasn’t joking about a White Whistles duty to dispose of Relic’s like Regu then it’s likely Bondrewd will attempt to kill Regu.

At least we see what RIko’s mother looked like and we know who to blame for giving her a potato face. One really has to wonder just what Lysa saw in Toska for he certainly didn’t seem all that impressive for the couple of seconds he was on screen. Ozen’s reaction to it was rather amusing though and it does seem to be the case that she saw Toska as something which weakened Lysa’s resolve. However it seems that Lysa is still determined to reach the bottom of the abyss and made Ozen promise to prepare and send Riko down to her. This does throw a wrench into my previous assumption of Riko mistakenly thinking the world revolves around her as it appears it does to a certain extent. The episode ended well with Maruruks goodbye which was surprisingly effective despite their limited screentime. I guess the idea that Riko and Regu where the only real friends Maruruk had and possibly ever will have is enough to give their tearful goodbye needed impact.

As pointed out by members of this site, what remains a big problem with Made in Abyss is that the story is gearing up to get started and yet the series is nearing it’s end. There doesn’t appear to be enough source material to provide a second season and as anime is generally an advertisement for manga the likelihood of a second season would depend on the popularity of this series not waning. Made in Abyss, much like many other Anime, has a high chance of leaving it’s unfinished story without the ending it deserves. The only way to see the conclusion would be to start reading the manga but even then the manga could get axed and the ending would be rushed and unsatisfying. I don’t mean to say that Made in Abyss should have an anime original ending. But this does feel like a story that needs a second season even to just show the grown of Regu and Riko. As a last note Ozen apparently dislocates her back in order to sit at a table. Seems like a painful way to do things but being as old as she is maybe it helps with Arthritis.

Kakegurui – 08[Love-Dancing Woman]

by AidanAK47, posted in Currently Watching:, Kakegurui

I only just noticed it now but I see the opening of this series actually spoils the order which Yumeko takes on the student council. Likely because I skip the opening after seeing it once.(Unless it’s really good.) So this time we have an idol girl and if there are those who read my posts then you might know that I don’t have a particularly high opinion of idol culture. I have see many an anime which attempted to glamorise the nature of it as giving hopes and dreams or promoting advertisement for a good cause. Though that’s fiction and no matter how I try to think of the positives of idols, I really cannot see it other than the exploitation of young girls in order to strip lonely individuals of their money. For the music is frankly terrible and the underlying implications are rather sinister. Of course I am no idol expert so my opinion isn’t worth much as I have only experienced it through the lens of anime. Still I do wonder just what those girls think as they shake their fans hands and jump on stage to sing songs. For I wouldn’t be surprised if it was close to what Yumemi thinks here.

I don’t blame Yumemi for hating her fans, if anything she has good reason to. The level of obsession they have is quite creepy and much like she said, they aren’t even listening to her music. These are the kind of fans that would burn her albums at her mentioning a boyfriend. (That even happened with an anime when one of the characters revealed that she had a previous relationship. The demand for idolised girls to remain “Pure” sounds much like a contradiction to me. For the only reason they want her “pure” is so they can imagine dirtying her themselves) Still I find her plan to reach stardom through the idol industry to be rather fascinating yet highly unlikely. From the 5 minutes I spent searching google I can’t find any Japanese idol that broke into Hollywood Cinema. Nor would I think one would be looked upon favorably as that would be more the Justin beiber or Miley Cyrus path to fame. I mean sure you would be well known but not very respected. Looking at her goals, her idol career would be more a blight than a blessing and she would fare far better if she just learned English and started Acting.

Anyway Yumeko does her usual thing of removing any safety nets from the bet which appears to been helped along by another member of the student council whose attempting to shake things up now that the student council president…has taken a helicopter…to engage in important business…(Alright Aidan, you know it’s dumb but let’s just roll with it.) Though honest question, what does student council work actually entail? I have seen plenty of series where they apparently do paperwork and it’s supposed to be a rather busy job but I am having a hard time thinking of what they actually do besides allocating club budgets and organising school Festivals. I fear I may have gotten rather sidetracked in this episode post but well it could be summarized as just introducing the new Council member and her challenging Yumeko to a bet. We don’t know what the bet entails but we do know that if Yumeko loses then she will be forced to become an Idol duo with Yumemi under the name of “Dreaming Creaming Girls”. As a side note, while I didn’t find evidence of Japanese idols becoming Hollywood stars I did find a few articles detailing Japanese idols who became Adult Video stars. That name might be rather prophetic of your future profession Yumemi. Of course the big thing here is that can Yumeko sing and dance, or maybe that doesn’t matter?

Princess Principal – 08 [Case 20 Ripper Dipper]

by SuperMario, posted in Currently Watching:, Princess Principal

We have a much-needed backstory of The Princess and the Pickpocket in the Black Lizard Planet this week. The actual case of week 8 was reduced into some minor scenes, but now I become more certain that the main boss the spy girls have to face in the end will be the Duke of Normandy; as once again his personal agent, Gazelle, was up to no good this time around, trying to trick Lord O’Reilly or whatever his name was, defecting to the Commonwealth to trap him. How the hell the girls figure out the whole evil scheme just by recognizing Gazelle is anyone’s guess (maybe because they’re… spy?), but no problem at all since the real juicy part of this episode lies in the Princess and Ange’s backstory and her interaction with the poor kid that remind Ange a lot of her childhood. Three weeks in a row Princess Principal slows down the pacing for more character developments and while the previous two added little to the main story, this one provides a backbone of Ange and Princess’s tragic “love” (see the heart-shaped door frame when the two girls playing piano together?) and with that story we can identify how the Princess has been struggling to become who she is today.

Alright. The juicy part first. Ange and Charlotte indeed swapped places when they were small – being around the same age with same features and same eye colors and everything (hey, they might as well be a twin). One from the royal and one from the dirt poor. The kinds you always see in fairy tale. But this isn’t your regular fairy tale, as the real Princess received a real hardship when she went out of her kingdom and then they got separated after all the high-spirited talks about becoming a real Queen, healing the world and what not. In a serious side though, the flashback gives us much more context about the relationship between Ange and the Princess now; and it’s rather heartwarming to finally learn that the very reason Princess wanted to become the Queen is because that was exactly what Ange wanted before the separation. All their conversations make sense now in retrospect. I also like the way that Ange not only appreciate the Princess for taking her role flawlessly, she also understands and admires her friend for all the hardship the Princess has gone through in order to survive – in order to act and behave like real Princess.

And for me, this part is where the episode truly shines. A certain conman, in the name of Kaiki Deishu from the Monogatari series, argues in Nisemonogatari – itself meaning Fake Story that (sorry for mild spoiler here: you don’t need to read the next sentence if you don’t want to be spoiled, for others, highlight the sentence) – the fake (like himself) has to spend much more effort to look like real and in a process become more real than the real thing.  It might sound like some twisted argument but it’s a kind of argument that I happen to agree with to a degree and here, it makes a whole lotta sense. The poor Pickpocket who suddenly becomes the Princess, who couldn’t write before or couldn’t read any single musical note, had to try harder and harder in order to match with the Princess’s image; along with a constant pressure that if she slips in any moment, she’d be uncover – and in a process, herself becomes the true Princess. The fact that she never regards herself as the real one, but tries hard to become perfecto make it all the more tragic. Chise realizes immediately (very great little moment there) that the Princess doesn’t enjoy all the hard trainings – those simply have become her duty. But when she said the same lines that Ange proposed long ago, it’s the talk of the real Princess – and to me at least, she becomes the REAL princess now.

It’s also nice to see Ange opens up to another little girl, Julie, who reminds her so much of her past. She goes such length to not only teach the girl how to pickpocket, but tell her the story of her life and comes to her factory to rescue the girl and advises her to stay in the orphanage. I don’t know if people notice but the painting that Ange finished (while spying) has Julie smiling in there. I also love the tiny little moments Princess Principal constantly place on other girls: how Chise wears warm clothes on the second night (wait, is she ninja or is she batgirl?), Ange has to dress up as the Princess and Beatrice gets angry at Dorothy because she brought booze to the mission and how the Princess’s hands were shaking while she was riding the horse. It’s a legit visual storytelling right there and I hope Princess Principal relies more on these little moments and sweet interactions than pulling the rug out under our feet with life-changing twists and turns.

18if – 08 [Threshold]

by SuperMario, posted in 18if, Currently Watching:

It’s nice to see an anime episode that tackle on the everyday life’s problems of people who experience hearing loss: ya know, having trouble with boss, can’t hear what the waiter says, don’t realize the train’s delay announcement, relying on flashlights for delivery, sleeping through the whole freaking Alien invasion… She said she has been stuck under rubble for a week now, but doesn’t Katsumi the scientist just met her performing back then?? Any attempt to make sense with the plot will prove to be difficult because there’s no such thing as coherent plot or backstory in this tale of the deaf singer. Instead 18if this week uses this story as a foundation to teach us about the importance of hearing, and to its large extend the importance of communication and then sheds some developments to our main Haruto. This episode of 18if was handled by Takaaki Ishiyama, the director of the new religious movement Happy Science-produced The Rebirth of Buddha; Chaos;Head and Tomoe ga Yuku, all of them were… terrible, but he’s on form with 18if this week. Overall, this week is a disjoined episode with dialogues that sometimes too “important” for its own good, but I quite enjoy its messiness and its original visual style.

The director has total control on the visual front of this episode and it fits well with the theme of the story. At first, in one of the Witch’s version Haruto and the Witch are in striking black and white world, but when he switches to another version of the girl the background is soft and naturalistic. The bar where Katsumi heads in remind me a lot of Paprika’s bar so it goes without saying that the interior design of the bar is my favorite part out of this week. As we reach to the end, the color becomes more prominent with strong, but in-control color palette (you can see all of them in the screenshots above). They nail the sound effects right as well. As this week is all about deafness and an ability to communicate with other through sounds, many decisions towards the sound effects are spot on: from the purposeful captions of every lines, the blurred dialogues that Haruto, like us, can’t hear properly to the soundless, only background music of the montage of our deaf girl in real life (significant what she can’t hear). The audiovisual in this episode 8, to sum up, is very effective that further elevate the story.

As the deaf singer points out clearly when she talks to Haruto, it’s a desire to communicate, to able to express and hear what others speak that made her wants do to deaf singing, and only Haruto can hear what she says. Somehow, the conversations progress into the need for communication, as she presses that people only like to hear what they want to hear (a bit stretching here, but… okay) and thus Haruto can’t hear what her other version says is because he doesn’t want to hear praise and good words (what? What?). I get the overall message but somehow those speaking lines just twist around like a twisted knife that I can’t really get into their train of logic. It’s important though that properly converse to each other make the most of communication’s effectiveness (only 7% into the actual meaning behind those words, the remains are facial expressions and the way the words are said – including tones, vocal pitch…) so yep, I kinda understand the underlying message of 18if this week, even if I feel it was heavy-handed at times.

We have a brief flashback of Haruto regarding his past life, or to be more exact, how other people perceive at him; from the kids who deny playing with him, to the parents who flat out tell him that he was a drag to the teachers (I assume) tell him that they were disappointed in him. Truthfully, I think those are just purely his perspective, the way he feels others’ impression towards him due to his lack of communication; but the sequence is so vague in context we hardly know anything concrete. I don’t even think that it’s his “real” life to speak of and I think it’s about time we need to learn who Haruto really is, don’t you think?

Classroom of the Elite – 07 [Nothing is as Dangerous as an Ignorant Friend; A Wise Enemy is to be Preferred]

by SuperMario, posted in Classroom of the Elite, Currently Watching:

This is your usual pool episode, except that it’s not quite your usual pool episode. The pool activities and the peeping Tom operation serve as a surface for some subtler scheming, and set the conflicts from Class D to other classes into motion. I’m glad that Youkoso realizes the stupid nature of the “Operation: Peep on the Girls’ Dressing Room”. They would play up the absurdness of the operation, make it overly-dramatized with several “missions”, codenames, communicating in codes. My favorite moment has to be when Iku cries his manly tears for nearly abandoned his hope of a successful operation. If only they could give their all in academic pursuit as well. Another intentional but quite questionable approach, is the “male’s gaze” perspective that keep scanning on girls’ chests and their bikini for wayyy too long. Normally this is just an excuse for lazy fanservice but in this context, it has its merits because it fits really well to the peeping operation and their hormonal operators. This is one of the rare cases when I can argue that anime uses fan-service elements successfully, the kind of fanservice that fits to its theme and has deeper implications.

This episode also serves as a base to re-establish the tension between different classes, as in somewhat convenient fashion, all of the important figures from each class, and the student council president himself, appear all in one place – in a pool; or to be more exact, in front of the pool’s public bathrooms. The tension between Class-A and Class-C has been well hinted in previous episodes, and this time Class-D member (Sudo, of course) finds himself stuck in the middle of this whole conflict, both literally and figuratively. Horikita’s announcement in the diving board (I thought she would jump for sure) serves as the final declaration of how Class-D is willing to climb up rank, and force the others to take them seriously. At the moment Class-B has a friendly term with Class-D, but really what is Ichinose’s real motive?

But Horikita’s little event in that diving board is only in a service of distracting the other classes to save those stupid boys from getting caught, as Ayanokouji has pulled all the strings on a backstage to let the boys do what they want, but eliminate all the consequences in the process. It’s the only real reason that the anti-social Horikita decided to join them for a day in a pool after all. Amusing that this episode is the first time that we get to hear her voice over – to know her inner voice and the way she sees the world. While this girl Horikita is as dry as the Sahara Desert, it’s good to understand her inside a little bit more because unless we can identify the main cast as real people, we’d have a hard time rooting for them when conflict arises. Ultimately, this episode is exactly how a pool episode function: main characters gather around and have fun times together, splashing waters at each other (ohh, you poor thing, Sakura…) and at the end of the day, having a fond memory together as friends, something that both Horikita and Ayanokouji rarely aware of.

Fate/Apocrypha – 08[The Beginning of the War]

by AidanAK47, posted in Currently Watching:, Fate/Apocrypha

One of the particular things I like about Apocrypha is that out of the Fate franchise, this is the only Holy Grail War that is deserving of the title of War. Other grail wars are certainly flashy but by definition they are more battle royales with every man for himself. This on the other hand has armies with two sides each with their own generals. This is a genuine war and not a war in name only. Though while I say that the real deciding factor in this war is the servants with the Homunculi and Dragon tooth warriors being just pure cannon fodder. Another thing I like is that they have pretty much thrown away the whole “keep the war secret” rule which has always been a rather inconsequential rule. It has only ever been relevant in two places in the entire Fate series. One was with Shirou Emiya being a witness to the battle between Archer and Lancer in Fate/Stay Night. Remarkably the only civilian within the Fate universe to ever do so despite the kind of things that the servants get away with. The second time was when Fate/Zero’s caster summoned a monster in the river and gave the masters a reason to all gang up on him. Other than that despite servants having ridiculously flashy battles in open view, no one ever sees them and the damage is written off as gas explosions and the like. There are those assigned to cover it up but it really is silly that no one in Fuyuki manages to see any of this going on. In Apocrypha this rule is just chucked out the window because why bother with it. We got a giant flying fortress with a small war going on so screw the rules, he who dares, wins.

This was an alright episode of the show as we have an action packed battles between the servants. I really do love the exchanges between Chiron and Achilles, as well as Vlad and Karna but the fights themselves do feel lacking. I attribute this to a general lack of fight choreography as far too little do we see servants exchange blows. To often do we have close ups and explosions obscure the action and very little do we see servants deflect blows or land blows. We either get an exchange of laser beams or see a servant wind up an attack only to cut to after he has unleashed it. This is basically the shaky cam style of fight scenes where in exchange of good fight choreography the director just makes a series of fast paced edits which does give the impression of a intense fight sequence but often is too face paced and frantic for the viewer to follow. For me these scenes are just filler which is why I am not particularly fond of the Bourne series of movies. No matter how flashy and epic these fights appear, they cannot hold a candle to the Saber vs Lancer fight of Fate/Zero. I would even say they are inferior to the Illya Archer fight of the first Prisma Illya season.

We have our matchups, Vlad is facing off against Karna and while he has a home field advantage Karna is someone who could fight on par with GIlgamesh so there bout isn’t favorable to him. We did get a bit of backstory on Vlad but once again I am disappointed that it didn’t go into Vlad’s reason for fighting in this war. Chiron is facing off against Achilles which is a matchup made more interesting by their former relationship as master and student. Astolfo is taking on Semiramis and the hanging Gardens of Babylon in the air. Our last fight appears to be Shirou Kotomine taking on Fran in the woods after having decided to leave the garden as a kind of test of conviction. Shirou seems to be under the impression that if he can come back from the battlefield alive then this would mean that god approves of his mission and he can move forward without doubt. At the moment i can’t really think anything of Shirou as much like Sieg he’s playing a bit of an expected role. I have heard he gets more interesting later but at the moment his chemistry with his servant is dull and his general interactions just seem to speak of him having some genius master plan that no one can guess. He’s better than Sieg who I swear just kills interest just by appearing on screen. Well Mordred has landed on the scene and it looks like we are getting closer to that opening sequence we saw at the beginning of the series.

Made in Abyss – 07[The Unmovable Sovereign]

by AidanAK47, posted in Currently Watching:, Made in Abyss

Well it’s official, Ozen is now my favorite character of this series. Big revelations today and one of the biggest is that Riko by all accounts should not be alive as the relic which protected her as a baby is revealed to have a different function. It can bring dead things back to life for a small period of time. Riko was originally a stillbirth which makes a lot of sense as her mother was diving into the abyss when she was pregnant with her. So of course the baby wouldn’t be able to handle the journey. However when Ozen threw her into the curse repealing relic she miraculously came back to life. Thus Ozen concludes that Riko was only temporarily brought back to life and that her life will end very shortly. I think Ozen is discounting something though as her experiments dealt with things long dead like a piece of meat. Riko has managed to grow up and life for quite a number of years so it’s possible that she will have a normal lifespan. Though Ozen did remark that all things brought back to life with the relic started moving towards the center of the abyss so it could very well be that if Riko reaches the bottom of the abyss that she would die.

Ozen also proves that she isn’t called unmovable as a matter of metaphor but her strength makes her quite immovable. She toed the line of becoming an antagonist but I felt during the episode that this was all some level of tough love. After all if Ozen really wanted to get rid of these kids then she would have done it before introducing them to Marluk. The fight itself did seems to be her testing them on a number of matters even if her methods were well…questionable. She tested out just how much punishment Regu could take but got too into it that she went fairly overboard. However even if his was excessively cruel she did teach them how an enemy would exploit their weaknesses. She turning Regu’s laser and pointing it at Riko definitely showed that Regu’s laser has too long a charge time and can be too easily misdirected. Ozen figured out that after firing it he would be out cold for two hours which certainly gives the laser a high price for it’s use. Ozen also showed that Regu’s arms can’t restrain everything and use them to help disarm him. So in the end this thing was her assessing their combat abilities and then deciding what training would be suitable for them.

Ozen is lot older than she looks as well as she helped mentor Riko’s mother when she was a small child. Looks like their relationship wasn’t as simple as being rivals and Ozen actually has a bit of a soft spot for her. Though she looks to have difficulty expressing it. I mean she dug up her friends grave just to verify whether there was a body inside which is rather excessive and tactless. Though with that Ozen denied her earlier claim and stated that Riko’s mother was indeed waiting for her lower in the abyss. It’s still up in the air as to whether this is a lie to give Riko motivation to continue. Ozen’s the mentor to get these kids in shape and she’s already thrown them into a kind of training I remember seeing in Full Metal Alchemist. Throwing them into the wilds and saying good luck. If I had to guess this would likely be training for for Riko than Regu as Ozen pointed out that the degree that he could protect Riko was limited so it looks like RIko is going to have to be more than the brains of the operation.