Gunslinger Girl – 8 [Il Principe del Regno Della Pasta (The Prince of the Pasta Kingdom)] – Throwback Thursday

Another week another slightly late Throwback Thursday post of Gunslinger Girl! I really need to get my schedule figured out, but for now lets talk about child soldiers. This week we get another standalone episode, and for all the issues that brings it was an interesting look at the Brother Sister relationship. So without further ado, lets dive in!

Starting off, this was another weird week for Gunslinger Girl. Once again we are given a standalone episode that has absolutely nothing to with the greater terrorist plot. It could have slotted in anywhere in the story and done the exact same thing, it feels disjointed from the series primary plot. That said though, it was a really good episode. In fact I would go so far as to say that these one-off stories are Gunslinger Girl’s best episodes. The focus on the Brother/Sister relationship and look at its overall life cycle was great. I loved in particular how it started us with Henrietta. Showing us her concerns on the subject before switching over to Angelica, who is nearly at the end of her cybernetic lifespan. Its a good look into the final fate that awaits our cast, even if it doesn’t slot neatly into the overall story.

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Fugou Keiji – 4 [Nothing makes a man so adventurous as an empty pocket]

Fugou Keiji is a ridiculous show, there is no getting around that. Yet this week surprised me by stripping away all of its crazy, ok most of its crazy, and giving us something… wholesome. So lets dive in and talk about what is Fugou Keiji’s most sincere episode yet.

As I said, this was a very calm and wholesome episode of Fugou Keiji. There was nothing overt or over the top about it. No money-based gags or super serious story lines, though it tease one at the end. It was just a focused character drama, a day in the life of our leads, and you know what? I think it worked. I think Fugou Keiji did some good stuff with Daisuke here. The growth isn’t huge, no sweeping changes were made, but it is the start of something. With this episode Fugou Keiji made the promise that Daisuke would grow as a character. That he wouldn’t sit statically just to be a gag for the show. And if the series can live up to that promise, can give us tangible growth for his character, I think it could be great.

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Gunslinger Girl – 7 [Protezione (Protection)] – Throwback Thursday

Welcome all to the halfway point of Gunslinger Girls! This week we go to Florence, appreciate some art and shoot some bad guys. All in a days work for a child soldier really. So without further ado, lets dive in!

Start off I want to talk about Gunslinger Girls production a bit, because I think it looked pretty good. For instance just like last week Gunslinger Girls opened dramatically, with a beautiful shot of Florence. Having been there myself, the opening on the Duomo made it immediately obvious where we were. The Fountain of Neptune only adding to that, setting the scene/location really well. On top of the setting though Gunslinger Girls also nailed the gunfights this episode. Every shot felt crispy and clean, managing to really bring you into the scene. The only real complaint I have about the episode production wise would have to be the cars. I understand that cars can be hard, what with the rapidly moving backgrounds and portraying momentum. At times however they felt like still 2D images sliding into one another and it really took me out of the moment.

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Re:Zero Starting Life in Another World 2 – 05 [A Step Forward]

The great episodes keep coming and hope this continues as we hit the beginning of the death loop. With the start of the episode we have the conclusion to the first tomb trial and as a particular thing I find of note is that Echidna didn’t declare that Subaru had passed the trial until after she planted the idea that his resolution with his parents was merely self wish fulfillment. It’s a particularly devilish aspect of Echidna to point out that the world is fake and suggest that the actions of Subaru’s parents were just how Subaru wished for them to react. In other words that the emotional gut punches of last episode was just Subaru receiving the responses he desired from his parents to remove his guilt. A tactic that looked to be working until Subaru to denied it completely as he could never imagine such responses from his parents. When we see the banter between these two characters it can be easy to forget Echidna’s nature as a witch and it’s great that she displays such shows of manipulation and ill intent. She never even confirms whether what she said is true or that Subaru was correct so we have no real idea if what we saw last episode of Subaru’s parents is indeed their true character. All we know is that Echidna declared the trial completed once Subaru brushed her accusations aside.
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Great Pretender – 09-10 [Singapore Sky]

We’ve reached the conclusion to Singapore Sky, my least favorite of Great Pretender’s three cases thus far. I love origin stories, so Los Angeles Connection’s task of integrating Makoto into Laurent’s gang of crooks was right up my alley, and the upcoming Snow of London is a breezy revenge tale with some nice Cynthia focus. ‘Singapore,’ by contrast, is the darkest of the three arcs, with war-torn backstories and active death drives, yet it also uses more narrative cogs than its cousins. Watching these last two episodes, I felt that Luis’s involvement pushed the story beyond its carrying capacity – but that doesn’t mean there weren’t a lot of great moments in episodes 9 and 10. Let’s run them down (along with the not-so-great stuff) after the jump.

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Re:Zero Starting Life in Another World 2 – 04 [Parent and Child]

Let me introduce you to the best episode of the second season so far, if not one the best episodes in the series.(Episode 15 remains my top pick with 18 second but this is certainly up there) Re:Zero can sometimes be considered a deconstruction or subversion of the Isekai genre, I myself may have referred to it as such maybe if I look through my old posts, but the fact of the matter is that if it was so then it was subverting tropes that had not even been established yet. Re:Zero is actually one of the granddaddys of the Isekai Genre alongside what can be considered the real kickstarter, Mushoku Tensei(People often wrongly attribute Sword Art Online with the monicar and while the webnovel of that certainly came before Mushoku Tensei, the factors and tropes commonly associated with the genre as well as the popularisation of the concept that lead to many MANY imitators most definitely belongs to Mushoku Tensei. Which is getting an anime by the way.) That was a tangent but essentially in a way Re:Zero acts as a criticism of what the genre would become just by the fact that the tropes that defined it hadn’t been set so the author simply addressed what by accounts most Isekai should address. Namely that a person who is Isekaied to another world did in fact have a life that could affect others before being transported away.
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Fugou Keiji – 3 [The Sinews of War Are Infinite Money]

Ladies and gentleman, boys and girls, Fugou Keiji has returned! It’s been a few months since we got our last dose of “billionaire solving problems with money”, I’m glad its back. So without further ado lets dive in and talk Japanese Batman!

First up though, a recap of what exactly Fugou Keiji is all about for those that have forgotten. The story centers around Daisuke Kanbe, a multi-billionaire with more money than god. In his quest to play detective he solves any and every problem with money. Need a car to chase a crook? Buy some random civilians car for 3x its worth and go. Need to bust into the penthouse of a building for some espionage? Just buy the building and shoot a rocket launcher at it since its now your property. Doing his best to rein Daisuke in is Haru Katou, a compassionate and former First Investigation Division detective, now relegated to grunt work. Together, with their mix of street smarts and raw monetary power, they will solve a myriad of crimes. And yes, Daisuke has his own AI Alfred. Caught up? Good, its time to talk new episode.

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Gunslinger Girl – 6 [Gelato (Ice Cream)] – Throwback Thursday

This week on Gunslinger Girl we finally dive into some plot, kill some terrorists and Henrietta gets some ice cream. What more could you ask for in a week? So without further ado lets dive in, and apologies for the delay, busy day.

Starting off I want to bring up Gunslinger Girls production again, as that was a big selling point initially. The animation in the first episode was fantastic, from the falling bullets to Henrietta’s movements. Sadly that hasn’t really carried through the rest of the episodes. It’s not terrible, but most of the time Gunslinger Girl lacks the same… oomph it had early on. However as if to offset that, this episode really upped the cinematography. The opening segment with the trains in particular caught my attention. Without a word, Gunslinger Girl managed to setup the bomb and the two trains fantastically. Heightening the tension, letting one pass but the bomb tick on before throwing another train coming from the opposite direction. Will this one pass? What about another? When will the bomb blow? It was a fantastic introduction to the episode and its plot.

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Re:Zero Starting Life in Another World 2 – 03 [The Long-Awaited Reunion]

Thus enters one of my top contenders for favorite Re:Zero character, Echidna, the witch of Greed and while she does not fill that Rem shaped hole in my heart, she certainly does make for a scene stealing character. Hopefully not to the extent that she takes Rem’s place in overshadowing the actual main heroine of the series but if we are to get more of her my only response can be “Yes, Please”. When one considers the witches of Re:Zero we can only base it on the only witch we know of, the Witch of Envy Satella, which does paint them in a nefarious light. To this point we have seen them as a calamitous enemy of the people and Echidna certainly does seem to wish to present the character of a wise fearful character. Indeed if that was all she was then that would be a typical if not boring development but instead we have a character who is far more playful and relatable. The best moment of the episode to me was her ready to play the exposition device for Subaru and a normal protagonist would have sat down and let her worldbuild to her heart’s content. Not Subaru, he just brushes her off by asking to go home and causes her to drop any semblance of the persona she put up to complain about how he is declining a meeting that others would kill to have. Showing that it isn’t so much that Subaru needs to talk to her but rather she wants to talk to him.
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Gunslinger Girl – 5 [Promessa (Promise)] – Throwback Thursday

Another week, another episode of Gunslinger Girl, and another new cast member is introduced. This week we get another Brother/Sister pair, a deeper look into the Agency and just a bit of tragedy. So without further ado, lets dive in!

Starting off I want to explain where I am at with Gunslinger Girl. Because you see, I think I’ve had the wrong idea of what exactly this show is. After the first episode I was expecting a crime thriller of some kind, a character driven pew pew shootemup with morally questionable children. And so as we worked through these last 4 episodes I ended each one thinking “Great, when does the plot start?”. As many of you have told me, this was clearly a mistake. That isn’t what Gunslinger Girl is about, shooting guns is just a consequence of the setting. Rather Gunslinger Girl is about… well, the girls and those watching over them. About their relationships and how they interact with each other. I want to say its almost episodic in nature, but who knows where it will go. As for me, I’m just along for the ride now.

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