Category: Finished Series: Mystery/Suspense

Magical Girl Raising Project – 08[Sudden Event In Session!]

by AidanAK47, posted in Currently Watching:, Magical Girl Raising Project

Blessed be the peacemaker, for she ups the body count. I don’t think it’s a surprise that Winterprison ended up dying while protecting Nana. But it is surprising that she managed to take down one of the twin angels before getting taken out. All the more surprising considering that the angels didn’t get a flashback so hurray for unpredictability! Though considering that I don’t really care much about them for it to hold any emotional weight it was more just nice to have one of the annoying characters get taken out of the show. Swim Swim is someone I care about and it was fascinating how she went about this. Ultimately she was following Rulers advice in that the leader does the absolute minimum and leaves the majority of the work to a subordinate. It’s no doubt that Ruler was an incompetent leader with a superiority complex but it is fascinating in how Swim Swim holds her in such reverence and uses her image to become a better yet crueler leader than Ruler ever was. Really what is wrong with this girl, after all she wasn’t sad that one of the twin angels died, instead she was disappointed in herself because she thought that Ruler would have done it better.

It was a good plan but they didn’t quite count on Weiss not getting taken out immediately. There is the question of why the peaky angel didn’t transform to escape Weiss’s grasp, especially when Weiss was specifically telling her that if she transformed into Nana again she wouldn’t be able to hurt her even if she knew she was fake. But I think they can’t transform as long as someone is touching them. Evidence of this being how when the angels stabbed Weiss and she pulled out the knife and threw it into the air before she transformed back. Fear as well could be a factor. But if I was to question anyones actions here I would question Weiss’s. Taking into account her ability I think she could have killed all the team by using her wall ability to crush them against the ceiling.

Koyuki seems to see that Hardgore Alice isn’t her enemy though she doesn’t quite like her all the same. Calamity Mary on the other hand has gone full psycho. With both Weiss and the angel out that means we only have two more eliminations to end the battle royale. Judging by current circumstances I doubt Mary is going to come out of this alive. We have seen that Mary was an abusive housewife looking to bully the weak and Fav jumped to give her power straight away the demonic little monster that he is. I do quite like when he drops the cutesy act and his tone goes more malevolent. Mary’s background is pretty typical but it does make her reaction to Alice a little more interesting. Mary likes to bully those weaker than her and while she can overpower Alice, she cannot kill her. So this pretty much makes Alice unbullyable and something Mary cannot stand. This would give their next confrontation some real emotional weight that has been missing from all the fights up to now.

Watching this really makes me appreciate just how well Fate/Zero set up it’s own Battle Royale as it truly was a well structured plotline. With fight scenes in a story you generally have a few ways to go about it. One way is to go with spectacle and make a fight visually dynamic say like Drifters did with it’s action scenes this week. However Raising project just doesn’t have the kind of animation and artstyle to really deliver on a spectacle. Another method is to give a fight an emotional weight. In Fate/Zero the first episode was the worst but it did the groundwork of clearing up all the masters motivations and how they contrasted the other players. The very first fight of the series setup dynamics between the servant. Like Gilgamesh wanting to take down berserker, Berserker wanting to fight Saber, Saber needing to fight Lancer…each character had a counterpoint that made the fights compelling, be it through principles or personality. Raising project doesn’t have that. For the most part all the battles are random skirmishes between opponents who don’t actually know each other. Dues to our lack of information on their characters these fight just feel rather empty and ineffectual.

However we do have counterpoints forming within the cast. Nana has reason to fight Swim Swim, the peaky angel will likely want to attack Nana in revenge for her sister, Mary wants to get back at Alice, Koyuki will want to fight Cranberry after finding out she’s responsible for Souta’s death…these could make the battles more interesting but even then I think this shows big mistake was having such a massive cast of characters. The best battle royales make it a point to get you to care for the characters before killing them off. I am far too apathetic about the plight of these girls to get invested in the conflict. Of course this doesn’t mean we need more flashbacks as they are the lazy tool for character development. Instead having more meaningful character interaction and grown would be a better option. Ripple and Top Speeds relationship is a good example. Speaking of which, I really worry for top speed. We have got the full extent of her backstory which means that she is a prime target to be killed off.

Magical Girl Raising Project – 07[Up Your Friendship!]

by AidanAK47, posted in Currently Watching:, Magical Girl Raising Project

Hardgore Alice really lucked out in regards to Magical girl abilities as he pretty much has the perfect ability for making her the most dangerous thing in this battle royale. I do wonder what happens to her phone though when she gets ripped to shreds. Calamity Mary’s whole gauntlet of trying to kill Alice. She quite literally tried everything in regards to killing her from encasing her in concrete to trying to dissolve her in acid. Either way it looks like Calamity Mary’s ability is being able to pull out any weapon she needs. I at least appreciate that Mary liked Magicaroid enough to actually seek revenge for her death and Fav is certainly showing that he’s willing to bend the rules as long as he gets something in return. Mary didn’t specify just what job she would do for Fav for the information on Hardgore Alice but it could be related to her calling out Ripple at episodes end.

We also get a look into a character’s backstory. I originally thought it was Calamity Mary seeing as the entire first half was dedicated to her but it seems that it was instead Ripple, the Ninja magical girl who hangs out with Top Speed. I do like Ripples style as her backstory was gearing up to be a typical abused child story but she’s got moxie. The characters around her are playing the usual fair of being bullies why too obnoxious to be considered believable but the minute they go too far she shows them she ain’t going just let them walk over her. Especially love how she dealt with her mother’s new husband. I was really dreading the direction that was going but the minute the man showed his intent Ripple was like “Oh, hell no!”, kicked his teeth in and announced that she was going to live on her own. I have serious respect for this girl but it’s clear she doesn’t hold her mother in high regard. In some ways she may be seeing Top Speed as a kind of surrogate mother as she does tend to act like one. I doubt Top Speed gave Ripple her real age as she did mention drinking alcohol and Ripple pointing out that she would be underage for it as well.

Of course if you were following the trend of deaths so far then it’s a safe bet to assume that Ripple is the next one to die. After all, anyone who gets a flashback is generally the one to end up dying in this show. I would like for the show to break this pattern and instead have someone else get taken down because unpredictably would be a great asset to this show and that’s sadly getting ruined by how telegraphed the deaths are. It’s also sad that most of the people who die are those with the most development so far. I think characters are starting to get fleshed out a tiny bit in the case of Swim Swim, Alice and Mary. Through not really enough to make me care whether they live or die. Though I must admit that I find Alice’s current relation to Snow white interesting. Snow’s clearly terrified of her but Alice seems to genuinely want to help her. After all she did spend six years of her live to buy that rabbit’s foot only to give it to Snow White. Her nature does make her seem suspicious and pretty dangerous, especially the stiff undead movements. However I am guessing Alice is a Snow White fanboy(Confirmed to be a girl by last week’s mid card which pointed out that she lives with her aunt and loves stuffed bunnies.), and considering her abilities she would certainly make for one fantastic ally for this Battle Royale.

 

Occultic;Nine – 04-06[She Took a Long Cold Look]

by AidanAK47, posted in Currently Watching:, Occultic:Nine

Forgive me for my recent laziness in covering this series. I would like to give you a proper excuse as to why I have been slacking in my coverage of Occultic;Nine but in truth it really is due to a complete lack of interest in my part. My previous episodic reviews have been heavily negative and when tasked to yet again complain about how this show just isn’t interesting I find my motivation just isn’t there.I mean sure I could complain about how the blogger constantly tries to use the tooth key on every lock he finds when just looking at the lock itself would tell him if the key would fit. Seeing as the key is a lever lock type so using it on a lock clearly intended for a standard Pin tumbler lock key is just pure stupidity. There also isn’t any real need for him to find out what it unlocks in the first place as getting involved gets him closer to being arrested, though quite frankly it’s a miracle he hasn’t been arrested already. Then there is the professor who decided the best way to hide information was to fill in the dots on his ceiling to match baudot code and decided the best way to inform people of this was by writing code with his last breath?

One, isn’t there a much easier method of hiding information? Two, wouldn’t you run out of space on your ceiling if you have to write 256 names and some obscure number? Three, what is the point of writing 256 peoples names on your ceiling in the first place? If you want it found then use it to explain the entire situation to them. There’s no point in being obtuse with those whom you intend to have find the message. Then there’s the point of Ryo-tas being a complete worthless character and the detective kid who seems to only go up to people, talk nonsense for an extended period of time, reveal who he is, what he knows and then walks off having learned nothing. See…just pure complaining. Constant complaining is what these episode reviews would be and despite this I appreciated that the show was at least trying to repair the damage done from episode one and at least on some level trying to set up a coherent interesting mystery. Failing at it of course but at least trying. Then episode six happened and I felt compelled to write about this.

I am flabbergasted at what I have just witnessed as it is a repeat of the failings of episode one on a much grander scale. Sudden spitfire dialogue is back and the pacing is screwed to high heaven as we are overloaded with so much information that I wouldn’t be surprised if viewers were brain dead by episodes end. This episode wasn’t just a trainwreck be story standards but a visual trainwreck as well. The editing was scatterbrained and there are just decisions with have me confused as to why anyone in their right mind would consider it acceptable. We have one certain scene were the detective kid is once again acting coy, then shooting off what he knows only to run off having learned nothing. Yet when he is explaining everything he’s investigating, for a straight minute and ten seconds the camera spins in place.

It’s disorientating, annoying and has nothing to do with what the scene is trying to convey. Most of the episode followed a pattern of slow pans that when on for far too long follow by a sudden influx of jarring shot changes. Episode five had an equally weird moment of when the blogger walked into the professor’s room and for some reason they flipped the camera upside down. To highlight the ceiling? Then why follow that with 90 degree flips and having proceeding shots being slanted. What on earth is that supposed to convey? The director seems to be experimenting with shot style but frankly there are certain rules on how to set a scene for a reason. Breaking the 180 degree rule tends to leave the viewer disoriented and considering how much you are demanding they keep up with here that is a serious fault.

So suddenly we have we have Kotoribako and if you have no idea what that is then don’t expect to know by episode’s end as the first minute and a half proceeds to shove information about it down your throat at the velocity of a rocket. Suddenly this thing which was never mentioned before has become the centerpiece of the plot. This is giving serious deja vu of how the D-Swords hijacked the plot of Chaos;Head.(All that stupid nonsense for what is essentially a crappy Zanpakuto) Anyway we also have a sudden Illuminati that has also never been mentioned appear and start pointing out how the mass drowning was some attempt to create some kind of human Kotoribako and….sorry if I didn’t quite get it as my brain was really genuinely struggling to keep up with the sudden influx of information. Either way I don’t think it makes any sense. The creepy boy also seems to be creating some human Kotoribako while mouthing off the defense of infancy as an excuse as to why he can’t be held accountable for murder.

Thing is that defense only works the murderer in question doesn’t have the emotional maturity to determine the wrongness of the act. Considering that the first thing you do when confronted is mouth of the defense of Infancy that clearly shows you do know what’s wrong about the act therefore rendering your excuse complete moot you idiotic troglodyte. But hey he’s a demon child or whatever so it doesn’t matter either way. Thus we have the final twist of the episode and it’s the big one that it’s apparently been building up to. The twist is that….everyone’s dead! Yes, it appears the majority of the cast has been dead all this time and I just…really can’t care anymore. This is one of those twists which upon reveal seems shocking and interesting but when you sit down and really think about it the less sense it actually makes. I don’t know what this show is trying to accomplish anymore and it just seems folly to even try. I plan to finish it but my episode reviews may be more sporadic in regards to it. As you can see, my enthusiasm is at rock bottom when it comes to this.

Magical Girl Raising Project – 06[Get the Super-Rare Items!]

by AidanAK47, posted in Currently Watching:, Magical Girl Raising Project

Looks like this show has taken my previous advice and decided to up the kill count. This time we have two casualties.(Yes, two. Not three) The first is Shou, Koyuki’s protector who seems to have underestimated the fight he was in for and Cranberry has killed him. The fight itself I think could have had more flash to it which is something of a problem with all the fights in this series. Either poor direction or lacking animation make these fights less exciting that they should be but even then maybe the reason the fights are not engaging is that the characters just don’t have enough to them to make the fight exciting. In all honestly I seen this kids death coming the moment he swore to protect Koyuki but it really is a shame that he died just when Koyuki was considering him boyfriend material. If it’s one trait that this show needs to get rid off it’s showing flashbacks of characters who will die in the episode. Today’s episode had two flashbacks showing just who was going to die. The end of the episode showed that it would be to this shows benefit if the deaths were more unexpected as shown by hardgore Alice’s decapitation which really did catch me off guard. Still it looks like Alice lives up to her name and can survive having her head chopped off, making her a zombie magical girl. Well…it’s was bound to happen sometime and the sad thing is she isn’t the first one if you take Mahou shoujo of the end into account. But the ability to heal from wounds like that would be a serious boon in this battle and she should make for a good ally for Koyuki if that is her intent.

So Magicaliod was a homeless girl who just so happened to become a magical girl by using a second hand phone. It’s a pity she died this episode as I was just starting to like her but I guess that is a big fault in this show. Whoever gets developed also gets the axe. it’s nice to see Koyuki break out of her no violence policy and move in a more interesting direction. The girl needs to break out of being a dull character and start getting more interesting. Carnberry at least seems to have gotten more development as we learn that this elimination round was due to her and some contract she has with Fav. It’s possible she works at the company that makes the game or the game itself is some sort of magical construct. Either way it does seem like Fav’s intent is to raise strong magical girls and this whole ordeal is some kind of spartan training for something bigger. Overall I find his methods highly questionable as Snow white is at the top of the charts and she certainly isn’t what I would call powerful. Though Fav seems to be more interested in entertainment that his objective. I did like when he stopped adding pon to his sentences and his voice took on a layer of malice. Overall it seems this duo will prove to be the main antagonists for this particular arc but with Swim Swim still around that could change.

Speaking of Swim Swim, their group looks to have nabbed Fav’s latest offerings of special items in exchange for lifespan. These weapons are likely to give her team the edge while giving Koyuki a nice moral dilemma. It is interesting that she did in fact press the button to exchange five years of her life for weapon. If Swim Swim’s group hadn’t grabbed the item first she might have regretted that choice. But damn Swim Swim when for the 25 year one without hesitation. There is something seriously wrong with this girl and even she herself mentioned that it wasn’t that she wasn’t scared of losing what could be a quarter of her lifespan. Again it was her weird sensibility of following Rulers example. This is getting more interesting but this show does lack something to make it truly good. At the moment it is passable but the action scenes do lack impact, the characters don’t have enough development to make the situation compelling and the story so far has been a bit too predictable.

Magical Girl Raising Project – 05[New Character!]

by AidanAK47, posted in Currently Watching:, Magical Girl Raising Project

Being the peacemaker in a death game is one surefire way to paint a target on your back. Sure it’s a good thing there are people to run around yelling to give peace a chance but I admit that I agline more with how Ripple sees Nana’s proposal for peace. Empty ideals may be technically right but without anything backing up those flowery words they essentially become hollow. At most Nana has appealed to the administers of the game through Fav which in itself is rather silly as Fav wouldn’t deliver the message if he was behind all this and it’s likely that the Admins know full well whats going on. Other than that Nana has got good intentions but not much else. Based on what we have seen here with Magicaroid scamming Nana with junk items and how she acts at home, it doesn’t look like Nana has any ill intent. However there is an  interesting little bit of info in Winterprisms eyecatch in the midpoint of this episode. It said in her description that “She accepts Nana fully, despite knowing her intentions.” I am not certain as to what this alludes but perhaps Nana isn’t quite as pure as she seems.

For one I find her reasons for wanting to make Winterprism into a magical girl to be odd as she was stating how she was her knight and rambling on about how she can’t be stronger than her protector. I don’t think she is a skemer but perhaps she isn’t quite mentally well. While talking about this two we might as well bring up that Winterprism and Nana are lesbian lovers outside of magical girl form and I certainly appreciate that the yuri angle isn’t being pushed all two hard. The two act like a regular couple instead of yuri fan bait. I would like to say these two are the first official lesbian magical girl couple but that honor goes to Sailor Uranus and Neptune. Even discounting them I consider Nanoha and Fate to be canonical in a relationship.(They live together, sleep together, blush like red beets at each other and they have a kid who calls them both mom. It isn’t outright stated but these two have got to be together.)

While Koyuki warms up to the idea of making Souta her boyfriend, Swim Swim seems to be having trouble figuring out how to handle the Magical girl team with Ruler gone. She’s decided on stealing more Candies but it appears she doesn’t quite know how to go about it. While she’s figuring this out we get introduced to another chaotic addition to the game, Cranberry.(The villains of this show sure do have the least threatening names.) Our new girl seems to not really care about collecting candies and is more in it to face off against strong opponents. Not exactly a original motivation but she is a much needed fire to set off all the oil laying around. One particular thing I noticed about Cranberry is that the group mention she is the oldest magical girl in the area and that makes me think back to the opening scene of the first episode. And sure enough I am certain the girl standing in a magical girl massacre in front of a monster was wearing the same roses on her head as Cranberry does now.

It even added up to her motivation as the girl in the opening scene smiled when fighting off the monster and Cranberry is seeking out the same thrill of fighting strong opponents. This may be insight into what lies beyond this current death game as there appears to be monsters like those in the phone app. Possibly this whole elimination game is a whittling down of the girls in order to get the best fighters to take on these monsters. Magicaliod and Calamity mary continue to get along seeing as they are both scumbags who are willing to go to any means to win. Lastly we have Alice, the newcomer who looks to be very interested in Snow White. The show is trying to paint her as a potential foe but I think she will end  up an ally instead. There was a brief shot of a girl looking up message boards for snow white and I think she’s a fan who wants to help her. Considering that we are reaching the halfway point I think we really should start knocking out some girls as only two have been eliminated so far out of the eight.

Occultic;Nine – 03[She Cracked]

by AidanAK47, posted in Currently Watching:, Occultic:Nine

This week on Occultic;Nine…stuff happens I guess? In watching this i am getting reminders of Chaos;Head in a lot of ways. Now the Chaos;Head anime was a mess but the visual novel actually started really well with a lot of intrigue before D-swords were introduced and the whole narrative just became a giant nonsensical mess.  There are some common elements here as in Chaos;Head there was a murder influenced by a goth punk singers lyrics who was then claimed to be a prophetic. Here we have a murder influenced by a manga doujin where the mangaka claims to see in dreams. In Chaos;Head this whole prophetic singer thing just turned out to be a waste of time because it turned out the singer was batshit insane and the similarity to the murder was just pure coincidence. I feel this thing with the mangaka girl is going along the same vein. Basically  that she sees stuff in her dreams and pretty much has nothing to do with anything. I at least see the Occult part of the title is starting to appear with demon creatures and ghosts and whatnot, though I doubt we’ll be seeing even half the stuff in the opening.

I will be blunt and say I have little interest in what’s happening here. I can follow it though that certainly is a challenge but I find this show is trying to peak my interest by withholding its cards. So this episode we get a bunch of people acting suspiciously and a bunch of questions raised. Thing is I don’t care about these people and I am certain that any of the questions raised here will not have satisfactory answers. You may say I am speaking too soon and that I really could be surprised by what this show does with all this, and frankly you are right. However when looking at what is presented I see no possible way this is going to make any real sense. We already have the Occult involved so any mystery this series presents can pretty much be explained with “A wizard did it”. The idea of someone masterfully planning the suicide of over hundred people sounds like one hell of a feat in a story without the supernatural. However here Demons probably Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Booed them and they went and killed themselves. This series is trying to establish a massive conspiracy with connections everywhere in this mystery but the problem with that is that to make it all sound convincing and not contrived you need to be a damn good writer.

Ryukishi is one of the few who can build a massive intricate mystery without it feeling contrived and even he needs to cheat every now and then. It’s easy to build suspense and intrigue with questions but eventually you need to answer those questions. This is generally the point where everything falls apart. Here we have a murder where the victim had a key hidden as a tooth in his mouth which is connected to both a Doujin artist and a girl who set a curse on the victim using some sort of devil creature(Girl was also sent the victim’s scalp in the mailbox) along with a mass suicide, people who seem to be involved with secret organizations, a self proclaimed NEET who isn’t a NEET getting instructions from a toy doll that seems to know everything, the murder victim researching into Nikola Tesla and some Phantom plane, and a weird boy who abducted the friend of a popular fortune teller girl. Tell me honestly, do you think there is a way to tie all that together without resorting to something dumb? Because I certainly doubt it.

Magical Girl Raising Project – 04[Add More Friends!]

by AidanAK47, posted in Currently Watching:, Magical Girl Raising Project

Guess I gave Ruler a bit too much credit than she deserved. I still think in her own way she did care about her team but she had a much bigger ego than expected when you see her real self. Ruler has the problematic nature of overestimating her own worth and in doing so pushes away others under the guise that they are not at her level. Problem is that when you push away everyone you have no one who can point out your own faults and thus never improve as a human being. Ruler was a big shot at school but when she entered the working world she started bottom of the rung and was doing pointless odd jobs. Seeing as she had the ego the size of a small continent this naturally didn’t sit well with her and she used her Magical girl identity to flatter her ego. It’s funny when you think about it, she couldn’t rule the world of adults so instead she chose to rule over children. Truly she was petty creature which doesn’t deserve much sympathy as she killed off this episode.

Much like my opinion of 91 Day’s I am not fond of putting someone in the spotlight in the exact episode they are killed off or involved with a twist. To the viewer it then becomes obvious that whoever gets backstory is going to die and thus ruins the surprise of the episode. I knew that with Rulers attitude that it was really only a matter of time before she was killed off and the coup d’etat was really inevitable. However I didn’t expect it to happen this quickly and the way she was killed was rather unexpected. I don’t mean that I didn’t know Swim Swim would betray her as I pretty much pegged that by the last episode. I even was right on the money about Nemurin being the one to inspire the revolt in the second episode. But Swim Swim, despite the very silly name, could be turning out to be a very interesting villain. Despite her magical girl appearance, Swim Swim is very young and is quite intelligent as seen by how she purposefully distributed the stolen candies from Snow White in a manner that would leave Ruler in last place.

But what makes this interesting is that she didn’t kill Ruler because of hate, or because she saw her as a poor leader. In fact she seems to hold great respect for her even after ending her life. Basically it seems that she was following Rulers teachings in that all the members of the team should strive to become her. However in Swim Swims mind this meant that she can’t become Ruler if Ruler is still around. Thus logically Ruler must be eliminated. So in Swim Swim’s mind she sees this as carrying Rulers torch and quite honestly this makes Swim Swim rather scary. She’s young, smart, and can kill without remorse but is also highly impressionable. She is working with an entirely different ruleset and morality. She spent a large amount of time with the worst role model and now could start a bloodbath while seeing nothing wrong with it. I originally pinned Calamity Mary down as the villain for this arc but right now it could be possible Swim Swim is the true villain.

As for other matters the writing continues to not really be on the level of quality it needs to be on. Souta really should have known better to run off after the twin angels when he knew they worked in a team. I also find his power to be a little too on the nose. An expanding sword? Really? We all know exactly what that symbolises and quite frankly the show does as well. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that he holds the sword directly in front of his crotch. The action scenes lack real excitement though it could be just this fight that wasn’t particularly exhilarating. Souta has pretty much confirmed that he will be acting as Koyuki’s protector in this fight which makes me fairly certain that he’s going to die. We have another Magical girl targeting Snow White and it looks like everyone is dividing into factions as Top Speed and ninja magical girl meet up with the nun magical girl. This series still does have the potential to deliver on it’s premise and we have enough of a build up to really get started. I hope it can at least live up to the magical girl battle royale it is promising as we have far too many Dark Mahou Shoujo failures.

Occultic;Nine – 02 [My Cold Dimension]

by AidanAK47, posted in Currently Watching:, Occultic:Nine

After a disastrous first episode that has likely pushed away a number of viewers, Occultic;Nine decides to slow down it’s pacing to a more acceptable degree which is a good move. This does make the show much more watchable as the dialogue isn’t running off like a machine gun and we can actually take a moment to get invested in the plot and characters. However here comes another problem, namely the plot and characters. The actual story itself has some interesting points being it’s about a large cast of characters who all seem connected to the murder of an occult professor. But the way this show decides to tell this story is akin to a 5 year old on a sugar rush. It seems to be pulling inspiration from Narita’s Durarara and Baccano in that the story involves a large cast which the story switches between. However Narita’s characters were distinct enough to latch on to and he usually had his story in arcs with scenes that transitioned into each other with ease.

Occultic;Nine doesn’t have either of those things, it’s characters are visually distinctive but not personality distinctive. For one I actually confused the occult blogger with the boy detective that appeared at the start of this episode because besides one being a detective and the other not, they are basically the same character. A fast talking Otaku with short hair. Other characters have quirks but lack something to make them really stand out. For one Ryouka just seems like a less ditsy, much higher stacked version of Mayuri and by god if this…thing doesn’t make me question why I am watching this every time I see it. I am hardly a man who values realism in my anime but I have a hard time believing breasts of that size don’t snap this girl’s spine in two when she stands upright, let alone while dancing around the room. To me, too much of anything good or bad can turn something grotesque. However seeing how much fanart she has got already, perhaps my opinion is in the minority.

Generally in a TV episode there are two plots running. An A plot and a B plot. The A plot is generally the main draw and the B plot acts as less important story to give time in between acts. Occultic;Nine on the other hand has an A, B, C, D, E, F, G and H plot running in parallel and never give you time to breath. There’s the blogger who stumbled on a murder and is ordered to put out a tooth which is actually a hidden key.(Look at that screenshot up there, think that can fit in a human gum? Short answer, no. Long answer, HA! Hell no.) There’s a detective who is investigating the murder and is involved with some secret organization.(Good thing he erased the victim’s last dying message where he wrote “CODE” as if the police saw that it would surely give away…something. I mean what code are we talking about here? C++? JAVA? Python?) There’s a girl who has a business of cursing people with some demonic entity she has with her. There’s a girl who tells fortunes on the internet with daddy issues. That same girl and another girl are testing Curse girl’s abilities. There’s a guy with daddy issues. There’s another story about a girl who was so obsessed with her brother that she lived with his corpse. There is just far far too much going on here and none of it is given the time needed to really flesh it out.

It’s just a hailstorm of events thrown at the viewer without cohesion. And if that sounds like a complete narrative mess already then it only gets worse for believe or not, these events are not even thrown at you in order. Much like this series jumps between characters without warning, it also happens to jump to different times and you may not have even realised it. It’s hard enough piecing together just what is happening without having to worry about when it is happening as well and I certainly say this, for the love of god fire the director. Maybe if you hire someone who has an idea of what he is doing this mess can be salvaged but that of course would only be temporary. I know how this writer works and I know that whatever explanation for everything going on here is going to be utterly nonsensical and mind numbingly stupid. But hey, i am in this for the long run so throw whatever you got at me Occultic;Nine, you may even surprise me.

Magical Girl Raising Project – 03 [Update Notice!]

by AidanAK47, posted in Currently Watching:, Magical Girl Raising Project

Mahou Keikaku continues steady ahead though it’s writing still leaves something to be desired. In particular I was surprised as to just how lackluster the reveal was that whoever drops out is killed. The previous episode made it seem as though Fav was intentionally keeping that aspect in the dark with how he removed the girl from the chat room to prevent people noticing her die and it did seem like he was being facetious with the matter. However as it turns out it was really a matter of the girls never asking him so he didn’t tell them. I find the nature of this reveal to be lacking as to have the girls just so happen upon a log of a conversation between Fav and another magical girl talking about it is just lazy exposition. Compare this to Madoka Magica where an entire episode was build around the reveal concerning the soul gems and it had more dramatic gravitas. Here it’s revealed that half of them will die and the reaction is fairly restrained. You could argue that the audience already was well aware and they just wanted to get the characters on the same page but psychological breakdown is going to be the core of the appeal for this kind of series and if this is how one of your big reveals goes down them I fear for future developments. Though at least we do have factions being made up and potential betrayals with the Magical girl team and the robot magical girl teaming up with the cowgirl.

The bulk of today’s episode was dedicated to the magical girl team, particularly a girl called Swim Swim. I feel fairly confident in saying that Swim Swim is likely the girl who Nemurin visited in her last dream and I think there are signs of the effect she had. In particular when questioned by the leader who is called Ruler, Swim Swim mentioned Ruler stating the qualities of a leader. Which seems to suggest that if Ruler was to act in a manner unworthy of leadership then Swim Swim might take drastic action. In particular she was certainly keeping her eye on Ruler doing nothing while everyone was cleaning up the illegal dump site. We could have the potential beginnings of a villain here and while here ability doesn’t sound all that dangerous, being able to swim in any material like it was water, I can certainly think of some terrifying uses for it.

The other members of the team seem to have their own agenda’s, Ruler badmouths them all the time but it is odd as to why she continues to be in a team regardless and does seem to care if any of her team drops out. Meanwhile the twin angels are looking to gain popularity on the internet with the help of Tama, who is someone I would be genuinely surprised to see survive this whole ordeal. Considering the level of attention this group has been getting I say it’s a safe bet that Tama is next in line to reenact Old Yeller. This may be what spurred on Ruler to attack Koyuki as she likely knows Tama is next on the chopping block. There is a matter that has been brought up in discussion regarding this shows adaption and it seems as though side stories are being intercut with the main plot. General opinion deems this as good as it give characterisation to people who would have been killed off unceremoniously.

However there is a problem of important information being left out. In this case it’s regarding how the new update of “trading” candies works. Looks like I was right on the money about Fav setting up a system where girls could steal each others candies but this episode neglected to go into detail on how that works. The main gist of it is that you can trade candies with anyone, even if their phone is off, so if you were to make a trade with someone who had their phone off in their pocket, you can effectively steal all their candies. In this case it makes Ruler’s attack not be a matter of her killing Snow White personally as they don’t have to in order to steal her Candies. Of course if Snow happens to have the lowest count then she will die but i have a feeling Ruler isn’t quite as cold hearted as she is trying to be.

Magical Girl Raising Project – 02 [Collect Magical Candies!]

by AidanAK47, posted in Currently Watching:, Magical Girl Raising Project

While this show certainly isn’t perfect, I really couldn’t let this season pass without covering it. So far this show has played coy with it’s darker elements as these two episode have presented the story like it hasn’t played the dark card already. Thing is that the opening scene of the entire series made it clear from the get go what kind of show we were getting which makes the twist of this episode rather predictable from the start. For the most part Fav has revealed his true colours to the audience as the little demon was saying in the first episode about how there is never too many magical girls only to backpedal and state that he has requested too many for the region. His motives are rather mysterious at the moment but I find his explanation about Magical girls drying up the lands mana to be easily suspect.

I am sure right from the start that this was what Fav intended as it really so too much of a mistake to recruit that many without checking if the land could handle it. As the girls pointed out as well he even recruited another girl after confirming the land was at the breaking point. On the note of the girls, it’s rather interesting to see all the different types. Cowboy magical girls, Ninja Magical girls, witch magical girls… and it seems like our Cowboy is the one Soujo was warning Koyuki about. He/she certainly seems the most dangerous and ready to kill. She’s likely going to end up a major antagonist or a red herring that’s killed off quickly.

We haven’t entered full on battle royale yet because the other girls are completely unaware that whoever is knocked out of the running doesn’t just lose her magical powers but also dies. As I said who was going to die and that last place was going to die was pretty obvious. I am a little surprised that Fav is trying to keep it from the other girls though as he does seem to be gearing this little competition into a bloody battle. Rules are simple, whoever has the least amount of magical candies at the end of each week is knocked out of the running. In this case it seems like the loser actually had a large number of candies but because they were earned in dreams Fav apparently doesn’t count them. What I find interesting about his competition is that our main character Koyuki happens to be the one earning the most candies and is therefore in no real danger. However as mentioned by the girls in the flashback, Fav has talked about an incident involving magical girls fighting each other and how facing another magical girl is far more dangerous than fighting another humans.

Considering how Fav thinks I am fairly willing to bet that there is some sort of PVP system in place and if a magical girl kills another magical girl then that means she takes the losers candies. Now who has the most candies, Snow white Aka Koyuki. What power does she have? The power to read the minds of people in trouble, which also happens to be the weakest offensive power out of the group left. So the one with the most candies also happens to be the one easiest to take down in a fight. If you are at the bottom of the ranking and know that means death awaits you at the end of the week, then picking a fight with Snow White is going to be rather tempting. It’s a good thing Koyuki already has obtained a loyal knight to protect her.

Another interesting thing in this episode is what Nemurin was doing in her last moments alive. I am a little sad she was taken out of the running as it would have been interesting to see her go all Freddy Kruger on the other magical girls. However her actions may have a lasting impact on the series. She entered the dreams of a little girl waiting for a “princess”, a princess who just so happened to look an awful like the leader of the Magical girl group that the shrine. Nemurin told the girl that she could be a princess too and in doing so may just have planted an idea inception style into one of the members of the magical girl group. I am fairly willing to bet this girl was one of the younger looking members of the group and that she will now have a sudden idea of taking the role of the leader. Nemurins last act could have very well unintentionally planted the seed of mutiny that would tear this group apart. Though it might take awhile to get to that point. I get the feeling this show will only really start to pick up once this death game starts in earnest but that too may be the point which it falls down. Despair is a delightful thing for me to see but it really is something that requires the ability to play with expectations. Considering how predictable this episode was i am a little worried about whether this writer can really pull it off but I guess we shall see in the coming episodes.