Category: Finished Series: Adventure/Fantasy/Science Fiction

Made in Abyss – 09[The Great Fault]

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

Surprising as it is, this episode appears to be mostly anime original content. Though not quite filler as it appears this content was supposed to be in the original manga but the author was pushed to cut it out due to the series not doing particularly well at the time. Seems that with the anime the author got it added back in with this episode and I am quite glad he did as it really shows Riko growing to appreciate just how much Regu does for her. As well as the dangers of Regu’s incinerator weapon which may pack a powerful punch but it’s cooldown time puts Riko in serious danger. On top of that we have an example of just how devastating the curse of the abyss can be on someone in the lower levels even when ascending a small slope.

I was originally put off by Riko sacrificing the little creatures in order to distract the bigger monsters from noticing them though it certainly isn’t out of character for her. After all she is the survivalist type who believes in the natural order of things. The thing is that I believe this action had great ramifications for her throughout this episode. These things have been watching them since they entered the great fault and after that action it honestly looks like they were trying to kill Riko. Riko comments the little guys were leading them to food and water however they end up leading her straight into the lair of a Madokajack. Then when being chased by the Crimson Splitjaw the Neritantans blocked the exit so she couldn’t get out before chickening out at the sight of the massive predator. Then it appears they lead her to a monster who would eat her up only for her to cut her way out of it. Finally they all gathered and attacked her at once which Riko blamed on her smelling like the fruit they eat. Taking all these little things into account I think these creatures were holding a grudge.

As pointed out by a commenter in the last post, the last episode of this series will be a one hour special. Taking that into account this series has about six episodes of content left. At the moment the anime has covered up to chapter 18 of the manga with about 42 chapters out currently. From what I hear there is a good ending point at chapter 38. Possibly with some faster pacing the anime could reach that point but I feel reluctant to say it should speed up. From what I seen, Manga readers appear rather flustrated over the anime’s pacing. Not due to it being inaccurate but rather at the speed it’s currently at they won’t be able to see the moments they want to see animated. However I find the pace of the anime to be perfect as we spend just enough time in each level of the abyss to stop it feeling like a tick on a checklist. My general problem isn’t so much how this series is presented as i actually considering it superior to it’s manga counterpart. My problem is more that this series doesn’t have the runtime it truly needs. The extended last episode certainly helps in this regard but having a two cour series could have done wonders for this show.

18if – 09 [Idols Don’t Go to the Bathroom!]

by SuperMario, posted in 18if, Currently Watching:

We have an episode that serves as a commentary on the idol industry and as a cumming of dick jokes where dick can literally transform into a green genie. I can kind of appreciate the former but the latter is just as bad as it sounds, making it one of the trashiest episode in 18if. Depending on the source, this episode is directed by Kugatsu (based on the episode), or by Yoshikawa Shigarazu (based on its official website). Yeah, I don’t get that either, but whoever this fella is, I couldn’t find any useful information about him. It might speak to the overall quality of this episode, as this is one of the most awkward pacing with the least meaningful story 18if has done so far. Girls with big boobs; girls who wear school uniforms, gym clothes and… what the heck does the Witch wear anyways; girls who have dude’s face… and I don’t even get to the horrendous torture part. This is the first time we see the new side of Haruto, and that side… something we’re better of not knowing. Awwww

I’ll be frank that I consider Misaki, the witch of this week, my least favorite witch so far out of 18if. She does have a compelling backstory though. Before fall into a coma, which we eventually learn as a result of her crazy fan stabbed her multiple times (something that sound eerily familiar to the real life stabbing of Mayu Tomita just few months ago); she was a rising star of her pop idol band. The pressure from the jealousy of her peers (something 18if has consistently addressed), the pressure of pleasing the fan and the producers make her snapped. In her dream, she calls up all the people that gave her a hard time and give them a hard time herself by training them into idols. Again, I appreciate the show for telling us the dark side of becoming a popular star, although I can name about dozen other shows can do a better job of addressing it. The way I dislike this Misaki’s character lies in the fact her act feels very abrupted and inconsistent. One time she punishes the “girls” by burning their vaginas; other time she’s enjoying this idol training thing (where we know for sure that she hated all the hard works and these girls just train for the sake of it); and then out of nowhere she becomes emotional and drops her character completely. Also, remind me again how she can perform in the end considering she was stabbed multiple times before? This story is just ridiculous it’s hard to even take it seriously.

And then things get worse. The multiple “little Haruto” jokes are more align with hentai-quality level than say, Panty and Stocking’s sex humors – although I can certainly see Panty and Stocking can pull this off. We have that torture scene where they push those uncomfortable jokes to its limit and we end the story up with the Witch passes her ribbon to cover little Haruto; because she, I strongly believe, is fed up of his dick and all this shite just like the rest of us. I found too little to love in this episode, and worse this episode leaves a bad mark on me that will haunt me whenever I think about 18if.

Re:Creators – 20 [Before the Reverberation Disappears]

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

As speculated last week, Sota and Magane comes in save the day and provide the ending twist to the climax of the Elimination Chamber Festival but not before a barrage of powers being thrown at Altair in an attempt to end her.

Not even taking a moment to mourn the loss of Selesia, our embattled creations uselessly throw themselves against an overpowered opponent who can literally undo plot points. Altair seems to have adopted Shunma’s philosophy of not completely wiping out creations for the entertainment of the story even though it would be tactically effective. It’s all part of the plan to have the birdcage gain enough acceptance although I don’t believe that having Selesia getting herself deleted was supposed happen. The surprise appearance of Charon threw a wrench into plans and costed the government side a creation and her super fighting robot. Aside from that speed bump, the trump card of Sirius is a fun concept in defeating Altair by having a copycat consume her. I like the simplified crude design of Sirius as the show even acknowledge her as a throwaway character of a plot device. Of course, that wouldn’t be enough to take her down with two more episodes to go as it doesn’t provide a good ending to the antagonist and is unsatisfactory to the main plot. Even the explanation of how Altair subvert their perfect plan is meta as she isn’t tied down to one creator because we, the audience, all feed into her backstory and powers because she never had a original backstory to begin with. While the creations have their own unique character, Altair is creator is us, the audience, a fourth wall breaking idea that has been executed here.

How does one stop a creation with the power of literally thousands of creators behind her OP abilities? By going back to the opening scene where Setsuna decided to be turned into human paste. Getting there is the probably ending point for the odd relationship between Sota and Magane seeing that she’s already at the airport about to get on a plane to go abroad and murderously troll more people. If you recall, the whole mess with Sota started out with Magane deducing the massive amount of guilt associated with Setsuna’s suicide which led to a huge creation fight. It come full circle for those two to be connected back to Setsuna abit through a different process and have a constructive outcome.

Audience acceptance has been huge part of Re:Creators as it powers the existences and abilities of its characters. The way show bypasses that fundamental basis for the final twist before the climax was really clever as the reverse causality power that Magane passed onto Sota had all the hallmarks of good foreshadowing and built up.The audience doesn’t accept this Meteroa’s Hail Mary but the audience does accept the power of reverse causality so the result is that the audience will accept Sota’s character. It’s really meta if you think about it. Now that Re:Creators has gone back to square one, we can get the core of the conflict with Altair and her angst towards the world. Though, this Setsuna is only a copy of her real creator and there is no power that is able to bring back the real dead people unless the show pulls that card out of its ass. Re:Creators will most likely have Altair comes to an understanding and go back into her world with a happy ending with Setsuna but there always room for a surprise.

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.

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?

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.

Re:Creators – 18 [All of Us Are Incomplete]

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

One of the major gripes I have with this series is its uneven presentation that has far too much exposition while lacking in the action department. In the eighteenth episode, it finally found its footing in balancing the exploratory themes of creativity, action scenes and comedic bits in a seamless transition as Re:Creators successfully sustain its momentum in its push towards the last few closing episodes. From Blitz’s defection to the hectic fight of Shou and the explosive entry of Charon, it did not let up in its twists nor epic moments of awesomeness. Of course, Yuuya’s creator gets the short end of the stick as his own creations decides to spoils his own flagship series in such a causal manner that is akin to Reiner’s underhanded reveal in Attack on Titan. It doesn’t stop there as even in its more fanservicey moments, it manage to say something about the nature of anime fans as Hikayu’s scandalous martial artist outfit shows how their willingness to accept ludicrous scenarios.

For once, talking with Magane doesn’t end in a reversal of causality that is detrimental for those on the receiving end. Sota, in particular, has matured quite a bit from being the otaku version of Inaho (Aldnoah.Zero) to having a backbone when conversing with the most twisted and manipulative creation of the show. Seeing him defends his dreams of becoming a creator makes him a far more likeable character than the secretive Sota of the mid-series. I’m quite curious in seeing what Sota drew in his own notebooks as it is obvious that it isn’t doodles of Altair or erotic stretches of Selesia (or it is?). In any case, the decision to release Hangaku back into Yuuya’s control and allow for Sota’s creations to translate into reality is really the surprise of episode. I doubt Magane did Sota a favour out of the goodness of her heart given her history of being a murderous troll. This moment of graciousness doesn’t redeem her lies and bloodshed in the slightest, but it does show the other side of the coin that is the fun-obsessed Magane.

With four episodes to go, it comes as no surprise that we have not reached the climax of Re:Creators just yet despite everything being literally lined up for Altair’s defeat. There is simply far too much time left in the series for that to happen and Charon still need to have his time in the spotlight. I find it perplexing that the three defecting creations didn’t bother to even inform the government forces of Charon and his massive robot. While Charon does have that menacing looking mech adorned in black and red accents, the combined arms of the other creations should be more than enough to bring down Altair and a Vogelchevalier clone. As one person on the internet once said, “one super fighting robot isn’t gonna make a difference”.  

Extra points for those who can figure who said that last line.