Category: Finished Series: Mystery/Suspense

Joker Game – 05

by AidanAK47, posted in Currently Watching:, Joker Game

One of the things I wished for joker game to show me was that the spies of D-agency were not superhuman demi-gods who can handle anything. This episode nearly accomplishes that as one of the spies of D-agency is found out and captured. However it falters in that the spy was purposefully sold out and a ridiculously convoluted escape plan was ready for him. Even the highest most professional people don’t use plans that depend on a massive amount of pure coincidence and luck. Let me get the plan straight, you trained recruits to resist amnesia and truth scrum and decide to purposefully sell out an agent. Then instead of giving him a clear plan of escape, you give him the novel robinson crusoe and hope that he just so happens to make a connection between a single character in the novel and a symbol drawn on a door. A door which he can only find if he makes a mistake and follows the maps he was allowed to see. Thus when the soldiers come to check on him a sleeper agent will falsely report that he didn’t find him. For an agency that laughed off the idea of killing someone to hide your tracks because it’s too risky, why is it that your alternative is even riskier? There are dozens of things that could of went wrong here. What if they didn’t get him to send false info back to Japan? What if they asked him different questions during interrogation? What if he didn’t follow the maps because as he said before, they were likely a trap? What if he didn’t spot the symbol? What if he didn’t know what it meant? What if someone rubbed the symbol off? What if they did a second sweep of the area and the sleeper agent was assigned to a different part of the building? For super amazing spies this plan sure seems like it wasn’t thought out. Thus the biggest problem of the show remains, the D-agency is far too overpowered and all knowing. That truly diminished what effect this episode could have had as I never truly believed that he was abandoned and it just became a matter of how he would escape. So I didn’t have much attachment to the events on screen as I didn’t believe their was any real risk.

The design of the villain of the week was most outrageous this time around as we have a man with a head of Megamind interrogating our spy. Since last episode our villains have been getting more comic book villain styled while our heroes appearances make them difficult to tell apart. In fact personality wise is their any difference between our heroes? All of them seem to be around the same skill level and don’t really have any defining character traits. They for the most part are interchangeable and while that is a useful feature for a spy to have, it makes our protagonists seem unremarkable. The solider from the first episode had more character than all of them combined as at least he had perspective on his job and values. The spies don’t seem to hold any feelings regarding their job or have any personal aspirations. Which again makes for good spies but utterly dull characters. If the goal of this episodic format is to show the differences between the spies and their methods then it’s failing greatly for what one spy can do I can see any of the others do exactly the same. I can’t even remember their names or match the faces so it might as well be the same main character for all these short stories. Normally in a episodic show the first episodes sets up a group of dynamic characters and gives them a vague goal to strive towards. Cowboy bebop, hand in a bounty and get money. Samurai Champloo, find the samurai that smells of sunflowers. Mushishi, investigate mushi incidents. The strength of such a series is the ability to place a character in any situation imaginable, be it realistic or not. However here there are no consistent characters, nor is there a defined goal. Which makes these last episodes feel rather pointless. There’s no interesting characters, the spies goal is only revealed in the final minutes of an episode and whatever situation is easily resolved by episodes end. So I must ask, why should I care? I don’t think Joker Game is a bad show but if this is going to continue then I must be given a reason to care about what’s happening on screen. I need investment and you gave me that in the first two episodes but  since you removed the two characters I do give a damn about I have found my interest slipping. I pray this is all leading up to something, perhaps that story promised in the synopsis, but it’s possible that once Joker game finally does decide to kick into gear that I will have lost all interest in it.

~AidanAK47~

Re:Zero -Starting Life in Another World – 05

by AidanAK47, posted in Currently Watching:, Re:Zero -Starting Life in Another World

So Subaru has started his first repeat of this arc and at least this time he’s quick to come to terms with it. Though it is nice to see that he hasn’t shrugged off the progress he made getting wiped out without warning. But this time at least he’s at least making a plan and that plan is to repeat his actions from before. This may seem pointless but it does make for a good plan as it allows him to look over his actions with more detail and yet despite making all the same moves, things turn out differently than before. Rem and Ram get closer to him this time and things seemly turn out better than before. I believe the reason for this change was simply due to Subaru not noticing that he was making use of knowledge from his first run. He followed the guidelines for cutting potatoes before Ram told him how, he went over to his uniform before being told where it was and other small details that Subaru didn’t notice he was doing but Rem did. They brushed it off with Ram saying that Rem was bothered by Subaru’s messy hair but I doubt that was actually the case. In fact I believe Ram and Roswaal was much more concerned with Subaru this time around as both of them interacted with him more than the first run. It’s possible that due to him acting more suspicious they wished to scope him out more so Roswaal went to the bath around the same time to talk with him there and Ram began tutoring him on reading and writing to get a closer view of him. Perhaps even falling asleep in the middle of the lessons was a plot to see if Subaru would attempt to kill her in her sleep. As for the thing about Subaru being able to speak their native tongue yet not being able to read it, well I don’t really see it as much of an issue. After all you could say that this world speaks english by coincidence but doesn’t write it the same way or simply that whatever translation magic on him only works on spoken word and not on written words. Either way it’s not that important. When America goes to Japan everyone speaks English, when Japan goes to America everyone speaks Japanese so whatever the alternate universe that they happen to land on is fair game.

Well Subaru goes through his week yet again and even manages to do better this time with charming both Emilia and Rem. One particular odd happening was when Subaru mentioned about liking demons more than god’s, Rem practically beamed a smile at him. The way she reacted and her constant reverence for her sister seems to suggest that Ram may possibly be a demon. Or in a world that already has elves, a demon race may also be present in this world and the twin maids happen to be of that race. As Subaru reaches the repeating point it looks like this time Re:zero might end on a heartwarming note as Subaru once again makes a promise to go on a date with Emilia while she is tutoring him. Then the after credits scene happened and let me say, bravo. That scene was really well done and intense. The dark looming feeling of something about to happen and the shocking brutality of his death was a truly impactful moment. This does bring me to my next point though which happens to be a matter of gore. Now the manga and LN didn’t spare any details on the grisly nature of Subarus deaths but the anime has taken a more reserved approach to the matter.

I don’t know if it will be changed in the blu-rays but they try to keep gore to minimum while instead focusing on Subaru’s reaction to it. Truthfully I am not sure what is more effective as the gore does tend to be gratuitous in the manga. What you don’t see tends to affect you a lot more but in this case people might misunderstand about the nature of Subaru’s wound from the attack. You likely think Subaru’s arm was ripped off but you would be wrong. It wasn’t just Subarus arm, his entire left side of his torso was ripped clean off. They did a great shot of showing Subarus pain in the anime but the manga had this one panel which just had Subaru’s despaired face on it and the words “I want to die” bolded over it. It puts home just how much pain Subaru was in but admittedly it’s not what I consider needed. The point to get that Subaru died horribly while still not knowing what killed him. On that matter I wonder, just what is happening here? We have two factors at work. One is a mysterious illness that hits Subaru at his time and causes him to constantly vomit. It’s my base assumption that this is what killed him in the first run. The only particular causes for this could be a type of poisoning or perhaps that dog bite that Subaru has gotten twice now. The second factor is this strange murderer wielding some kind of chain weapon and happened to be going about the mansion’s halls when Subaru was looking for help. This seems unrelated to Subaru’s illness as why would this person feel the need to personally butcher him if he was going to die anyway? My guess here is that two people are out for Subaru’s life but one of them only came into play the second time around. The murder was also exceedingly malicious as they seem to have purposefully wounded Subaru gravely before putting him out of his misery. Taking into account the speed of the weapon, I am fairly certain they could have hit him with a fatal shot from the start before he could feel pain. They deliberately waited for Subaru to writhe in agony for a bit before giving him a fatal blow. The question is, who did Subaru antagonize that he didn’t in the previous run? The likely suspects would be Ram and Roswaal but then who is responsible for Subaru’s illness? In any case, I doubt Subaru is going to walk this death off as easily as he did his last ones.

~AidanAK47~

Mayoiga – 05

by SuperMario, posted in Currently Watching:, Mayoiga

We now back to the status quo on Mayoiga this week, as the group who left the village decided to come back, and the cliffhanger happened last week was never explained probably. I will say this upfront: this is not a good episode. We don’t learn much after it ends. We have even longer conversations between the cast compare to last few weeks, and even more ridiculous cliffhanger.

But we do learn a few more new things in this episode. Most interesting bit is that they perceive completely differently about the noise they heard (it could be a beast, a robot, giant wings, or a laughter). That could be a hint to the mystery. The lost village can be a place where we deal with our own problems, we see what we afraid to see. In other words, we reach to our darkness side. This could be an interesting aspect to explore but hell, Mayoiga sure doesn’t show us much of a clue here. This week spend too much time on the cast arguing with each other, and truthfully, I’m getting tired of them accusing each other episodes after episodes here, especially when they just repeating the same traits over and over again (I dare you to find a line in which Lovepon doesn’t scream “executed”). If the show indeed relies on those characters’ interactions for its mystery, then this can be redeemed, otherwise, I don’t see a reason why there are too much of this.

The other bit of information we gather is Lion’s ability to see the dead, or to be more exact, she has an ability to see people about to die. This is a good character moment for Lion and it’s not really come as a surprise, seeing her as the mysterious and quiet type from the beginning, but the reveal scene is still somewhat absurd. The cliffhanger at the end actually leaves me more annoyed than engaged, the characters just keep sprouting random names here, just like last week’s driver’s daughter, and I bet next week we learn a bit of who is this Tokimune again, only to be left forgotten for the rest of the show. Why the heck should I care then?

It looks like Masaki on the verge of revealing something to Mitsumune here. I hope they don’t take few more episodes until we get that bit of information. In fact, Mayoiga gives us very little information to work with. The worse thing is that if it keeps on dragging like that, people will start to lose interest in the mystery, if not already.

~SuperMario~

Joker Game – 04

by AidanAK47, posted in Currently Watching:, Joker Game

I am starting to get a little worried about Joker Game. After a very strong start it’s gone down in quality once it revealed it’s episodic format. This episode marks the lowest point of the series so far though I still don’t think of it as bad. Rather than focus on a member of the D-agency, this episode instead is about a newly appointed officer who is tasked by a superior to track down a spy in the military police. I do prefer this over focusing on the spy members as in the last episode they have proven to be far too overpowered to be interesting. Here we have a vulnerable man chasing after a dangerous suspect but sadly this story turns out to be far less interesting when things come to light. In truth this episode was basically a retread of the second episode in that it turns out the superior officer was completely corrupt and staged an attack to keep his illegal dealings from coming to light but the execution was far worse. This episode plays out like a mystery but never gives the audience a chance to figure out what is going on. The mystery itself is dull and not a lot actually happens. Our red nosed protagonist is given the job, sees a bombing, talks to a reporter who gives him a photo and then follows a man into a hidden casio where he spots his superior. However despite not doing much of anything, red nose is able to perfectly deduce absolutely everything that occurred and recount it back to his superior. As red nose goes on about how his superior became corrupt and began stealing opium from the evidence lockers I sat there wondering just how he could possibly know that. The episode never showed him paying a visit to the evidence locker or how he figured out that the man who was killed was actually investigating the superior. Did he learn it though the files the murdered man left behind? In that case why would the superior give him those files in the first place? There’s just a whole lot of answers coming straight out of nowhere and I think that if the show took the time to actively present clues instead of having our protagonist just lay it out for us would have made for a more engaging plot.

Then after our protagonist of the week points out his superiors illegal dealings and suggests that he get himself court martialed, the superior goes full comic book villain and calls in a soldier to kill him. Now really mister red nose, just what answer did you expect him to give you? “Oh yeah, damn you caught me. Don’t worry, I will go and hand myself in now. Good work.” You basically repeated the same thing Sakuma did except for making sure to have a plan to protect yourself should things go south. I sighed as the superior started gloating and shouting about how totally corrupt and evil he was with a psycho smile and manic laughter. One would think he would restrain himself in case there were actual policemen in the police station who could ever so easily hear him declare that he was selling opium and staged a terrorist bombing. The dumbest thing of all was that thanks to him mouthing off about killing the transvestite boy in the bombing, the soldier that he called in to shoot red nose instead shot him. As it turns out he was in love with the transvestite boy. Which leaves me to wonder just what was the point of all this. The episode seems to suggest that this was all the plan of one of the agents to get rid of the corrupt superior but all that agent did was hand red nose a photo and lead him into the hidden casino. If you are suggesting that he managed to predict how all this was going to happen before it went down then I call bullshit on that. I don’t care if you are some super spy or batman, nothing so dependent on luck and human factors can ever go exactly as planned. Even if it was all just as planned then I am certain you could have thought of a less risky plan. After all why did you even bother getting red nose involved? He didn’t do anything at all and you could have just informed the soldier that he killed his lover and there you go. Problem solved. I rag on this more than I expected but the presentation is still bugging me greatly. The dialogue, the framing, the storytelling….it all seems to assume that you can’t put two and two together and figure out things yourself. Everything is shoved right in your face with little restraint. For a veteran viewer such as myself I find it extremely patronizing like being given a jigsaw puzzle and then the giver assembling the puzzle for me because they thought I wouldn’t be able to figure out how a jigsaw works. One last thing, why did everyone have creepy smiles in the first scene? That was just weird.

~AidanAK47~

Re:Zero -Starting Life in Another World – 04

by AidanAK47, posted in Currently Watching:, Re:Zero -Starting Life in Another World

Despite nearly dying our protagonist wakes up out of the loop and now in the mansion of a strange clown like fellow with twin maids. The mansion looks to be Emilia’s home and we not look to be in a new time loop as evidenced by the last scene where it appears that Subaru was unknowingly killed in his sleep. This time it looks like Subaru has a number of days to work with and the cast has changed to a number of new strange characters. Todays episode was the first run through of the cycle so naturally it was just Subaru getting along and through the days. He made considerable progress in romancing Emilia but much like his first encounter that info is wiped from her memory. This might cause a disconnect with Subaru who might act overly familiar with her and scare her off. Here I must bring up the weakest aspect of the show and one I found a bit grating through this episode. The comedy is pretty weak. I smiled as Subaru referenced Evangelion as he woke up and even he picked up on the Tsukihime reference by asking the maids about them having opposing talents. Ram and Rem are clearly inspired by the twin maids of Tsukihime, Hisui and Kohaku. Though it seems they differ in that one maid can handle all manner of household chores while the other seems to have some other hidden talent. If these two are as inspired as I believe then that talent is likely very dangerous. Getting back to the comedy, while some references are smile worthy, other moments of Subaru pointing out anime tropes in the show is a little obnoxious. The other jokes are slapstick in nature and don’t really match the otherwise serious subject matter. It could be that our author is attempting to pull the contrast seen in shows like Gakkou Gurashi and mix lighthearted fun in order to highlight the dark nature of the other side. In this case it really doesn’t work as Subaru’s mannerisms and confidence are a little otherworldly. He doesn’t seem to have any concern regarding his old world and is a little too upbeat and friendly for a self proclaimed Hikikomori. I expect this part of the show to phase out though as it’s hard to keep a sense of humor when you are undergoing psychological/physical torture. Well unless you are Deadpool; in that case your sense of humour triples.

So what did we learn and why did Subaru die at the end of the week? Well we found out that the king and his closest successors have been wiped out by an epidemic which means there is a power struggle for the throne. Emilia looks to be a contender to the throne thanks to the emblem that was stolen in the first arc and this likely means that Felt is also a candidate for selection. So Emilia is in a precarious position that would likely mean that her caretaker would be cautious of anyone approaching her. This may be a reason for him to kill Subaru in his sleep but frankly mister count clown is so suspicious that it makes me doubt he’s the real killer. Even as he discussed Subaru with the pink haired maid it seemed as though they were discounting him as a possible spy. My guess is there is a third party involved here who took out Subaru. But perhaps Clownface and the maid changed their minds once seeing Subaru trying to woo Emilia. There is also a twin tailed loli witch whom resides in a library that should only be accessed by those who she lets in but it seems Subaru has the strange talent to find and enter it of his own accord. The loli is also voiced by a Japanese voice actor even I can recognise. Sadly that voice actor is mainly using their Shirai Kuroko voice for this one and I truly hate that character to hell and back. When hearing that familiar tone; memories of that irritation as I listened to that voice yell “ONEE-SAMA” and it makes me want to hit something until it breaks into dust. Aside from that their isn’t much to her character so far though she does play off Subaru well. That is the thing, Subaru has gotten most of the development so far and he has made it a point to openly declare these people as common anime stereotypes. But as I said before, just because you point out the cliche does not excuse still using the cliche. I would like these characters to gain traits outside of their current personalities so that we can differentiate them from the dozens of alternatives that exist within the medium. Next episode is likely the true start to this arcs conflict and I wonder what Subaru is dealing with this time.

~AidanAK47~

Mayoiga – 04

by SuperMario, posted in Currently Watching:, Mayoiga

It’s until this week that I just noticed the rather strange part of the OP of Mayoiga, the sequence was shown in the point of view of Masaki. It starts with her, then introducing the cast and finally ends with her standing alone in the lost village. But when I think about that, only in the first episode that we kind of follow Mitsumune as the protagonist, and that is because he had the most affection towards Masaki. She was also the last person to encounter Yotsun before he went missing. All the speeches from her are kind of prophetic as well. It seems like she unconsciously aware a lot of things about the place. Now I’m not implying she’s the mastermind behind everything but now I have a strong sense that she’s the key to solve the mystery.

We also pick up two important developments this week. The first is when the group felt threatened by the mystery and more than half of them decided to go back. I’ve always enjoyed those characters talking forth and back. Most of them are over the top and ridiculous that it’s rather fun to watch them shouting at each other. In this case they have many oppose opinions on whether or not staying is safe, I know that staying with Masaki is the best option (haha!), but I can see why they decide to leave as well. It’s a small complain but Mitsumune become increasingly annoying, every decision of his was driven by protecting Masaki, staying close with Masaki… makes him a paper-thin personality. The group decided to leave the village is an interesting progression as well, as I’m pretty sure they couldn’t leave the village, I’m curious to see what happen next to them.

And then we got to the mystery near the end. It certainly is fascinating. If the lost village is a passage way between the life and afterlife, where we can meet deceased close people, then I’m all for it. But the way I see it, it seems like Mayoiga is the place where we can encounter our deepest fear/desire. If this show goes to either of these directions, it could become a very interesting show, because when the mystery related to human emotions, there’s a lot to explore and we at the same time get invested. Many episodes ago I complained about the bus driver’s shaky role in the story, but I’m happy to say that this week he had a solid progress here. Still, damn if I know what the giant Mitsumune looks like.

~SuperMario~

Joker Game – 03

by AidanAK47, posted in Currently Watching:, Joker Game

I was going to make this a full announcement but seeing as most of it is already known I might as well include it here. I now have full admin rights to the site which means that I now pretty much run the place officially. I managed to get in contact with psgels with the help of a certain passerby and explained the situation. On matters of whether psgels is coming back or otherwise I am afraid I have no comment on the matter. EIther way I have done some minor things such as fixing the headers and adding some user account. I don’t plan on making any major changes other than maybe updating that shoutbox to a more useful version.(If I can find out where it is in the control panel. WordPress is a finicky thing.) Our second bit of news has already been announced by our new writer below. We now have a third writer on board by the name of Helghast. So what that basically means is more anime coverage for you guys. On matters of taking on any more new writers I am hesitant and would prefer to see how things go for a season or two. If we wish to take on new writers then we shall put up a post specifically asking for them and if that does happen I want to make it clear that you should know exactly what you are getting into. I don’t care for disappearing acts at this point. Right then, moving on.

Joker game is turning out to be more episodic than I expected as it looks like we will be following a series of small stories about the team rather than a continuous narrative. Though the escalation of World War II looks to be an ongoing background theme. Today’s story was a decent one though I heavily dislike the use of one of the oldest trope of fiction. Namely the Easy Amnesia trope. Our super spy loses his memory from a bonk on the head and then regains his memory from another bonk on the head. I am no expert but I can at least confirm that you do not regain memories by bashing your head a second time nor is it this easy to gain amnesia in the first place. Otherwise boxers would be a forgetful lot. I am a bit disappointed that Joker game is resorting to using this as a means to make this episode more interesting, especially when their are better alternatives.(Like maybe him faking amnesia) Well our amnesic japanese spy is in a Germany occupied France with three individuals who are with the French rebellion. The Germans are right on their tail with leaves mister Japanese Jason Bourne to make use of his particular set of skills to get everyone out of the predicament. Our new characters aren’t given much development as they really only feature in this episode but at least there was enough here to care about what was going on. Though the episode was essentially a wait for our secert agent to regain his memories and let us know just why he’s here and going through all this in the first place.

Another ridiculously far fetched plot point is that apparently spy school teaches you to embed your mission objectives into your subjective unconscious, just in case you happen to lose your memory on a mission. Hold the phone on that one Joker Game. I am willing to accept the elite spartan spy training school but that doesn’t mean you can use it to excuse everything. I would have just as easy accepted that he recalled his mission objectives due to it being the last thing on his mind before losing his memory. To say that he did it on purpose is pushing suspension of disbelief. It’s strange that they put this far fetched detail in when the end of this episode has a rather clever detail. Before entering the church our spy had one eye closed and he switched to his other eye once he entered. I thought it was a strange detail until I looked it up through reddit and found out that it’s a method of keeping your eye adjusted to the dark. Whats even more surprising is that this is the reason that pirates wore eyepatches. Not because they had some sort of strange habit of losing eyes. I also learned that real life pirates are significantly more boring than fictional ones. I still have a problem with the presentation which looks to be a byproduct of the original novel. It seems to assume the viewer cannot figure out anything themselves and decides to spell out as much as possible. I feel the story suffers as a result of this and if it’s going to continue then it could prove to grow rather irritating. The series still remains good and I am not exactly opposed to the episodic format. Though I would label this episode as just alright and I hope that these super spies don’t end up being overpowered.

~AidanAK47~

Re:Zero -Starting Life in Another World – 03

by AidanAK47, posted in Currently Watching:, Re:Zero -Starting Life in Another World

We reach the end of the first arc and our villainess is defeated but many questions left unanswered. I am glad that she didn’t happen to perish in our Knights Excalibah! attack as she plays a fantastic femme fatale. Her fighting style resembles that of Rider of Fate/stay night and when she climbed on the walls she almost looked like a possessed corpse. She’s a genuinely intimidating figure and the fact that her nickname is “The bowel hunter” makes her all the more scary. For our protagonist to make an enemy of someone whose primary interest is ripping out people’s intestines is a worrisome matter indeed.  Not to mention she such a beast that to dodge an attack when one of her feet is frozen to the ground she rips the flesh off her foot and freezes it with a crystal so she can continue fighting. That’s some incredible pain resistance. What we have here is an episode which was entirely set in a room with a massive fight scene. It wasn’t the highest quality fight scene I have seen but damn if it wasn’t pretty damn good. It’s nice that anime nowadays can have people fighting while talking instead of tense facial expressions to the sound of sword clangs. In particular the 360 shot looks to me like someone was taking lessons from One Punch Man. Well played White Fox. I would take some well done Sakuga over still frames and yelling any day. What is most surprising is that Subaru isn’t the star of the show here and instead the Knight who was featured last episode showed up to defeat Elsa. While Subaru’s actions did affect the outcome, it is surprising that he wasn’t the one to defeat her. It’s almost taboo for the villain of the arc to be defeated by someone other than the main protagonist.

He didn’t exactly sit back and do nothing however and his skills at fighting are getting a little ridiculous. I mean he was swinging around that massive club with one hand with very little effort. My suspension of disbelief has limits. That delayed cut at the end was also rather cartoonish as they realized that Subaru was actually cut and the damage only showed up two minutes later. Still how it was shown was rather clever. At first it appears his clothes were only cut which makes it comical but then comes the bleeding from his stomach. I doubt this means another rewind for Subaru as this does feel like the end of an arc. Reinharts reaction to Felt pulling out that emblem was also rather intriguing. By my best guess I would say that the medal stole had some charm that made it could only be held by royalty which is why Reinhart started questioning her about her family. There’s also the matter of Sattella whose real name is Emilia. Upon being introduced to Felt and Rom he remarks about her being a half elf. Then Felt panics because a Half elf with white hair is apparently related to something. Even Emilia remarks that she has no relation to that something. My guess is that this has to do with the name Emilia gave Subaru before which appears to refer to a being called the “jealous witch”. I am still loving this show so far and the wait between episodes is really killing me. It’s true that Subaru’s chuuni mannerisms can swing between annoying and funny. The characterisation also needs some work but quite frankly I am looking forward to the further dire adventures of Subaru’s time loop hell.

~AidanAK47~

Mayoiga – 03

by LightningBolt, posted in Currently Watching:, Mayoiga

Out of the 3 shows that I’m covering this season, I actually worry about Mayoiga the most. Sure, so far Bungou Stray Dogs isn’t good, but at least I enjoyed its visual and know what to expect on it, same goes with Flying Witch and Flying Witch will be the more consistent show of this season here. But 3 episodes in, I’m still not sure how Mayoiga will play out, it can range from the more ambitious show to the more silly show, or perhaps will be a combination of both.

To the surprise of no one, Masaki returns this episode after allegedly “vanished” from last week, and she was protected by our main protagonist Mitsumune (to no surprise as well). I enjoyed the back and forth confrontation between the group. Each of them have a distinctive voice so it’s always fun to see them playing off each other, even most of these are way over the top. But at the same time, I hated their reactions. Many of them overreact over a small, nonsensical comment. The overreaction has sadly become anime-staple now so we just have to deal with it. It’s nice to see a bit of background info on some characters, since we won’t care about them unless we know them. Those moment, unfortunately, is so few and far between, because- uh… the series have to spend time for other stuffs I guess.

And that other stuff in this episode happens to be when everyone decides to group together and making food together. These scenes sadly drag the whole episode down, and out of it we won’t learn anything (even who was in the group), the only thing we learn is the variables of rock, paper, scissors – which are nice on its own but feel out of place with the rest of the series.

About the mystery, now we get a bit of new clues: the vegetables have been well-growth indicates that someone still take care of them, we have a prison cell in this village so I reckon the same occurrence has happened before. We also have a bear-claw shape, and a body at the end. Things now just begin to get crazy, but based on the shaky execution from the first 3 episodes, there is doubt if Mayoiga going to hit a home run.

~SuperMario~

Joker Game – 02

by AidanAK47, posted in Currently Watching:, Joker Game

Joker Game is still proving to be an interesting thriller though this episode started off a bit rough. There was over four minutes of flashing back to the previous episode and even the opening of this episode. In a way it was used to show just how Sakuma came to his conclusion which revealed the man to be an American spy but it felt a bit excessive. That said I love how this all played out and just how the American managed to fool the Japanese military on the first search of his house. It truly is a mark of genius to place the microfilm behind the imperial portrait as based on the mentality of Japanese soldiers of the time, they would never dare desecrate the portrait and leave it untouched in a search. At the moment Sakuma was about to cut his own stomach open, he remembered the lessons of the spy agency and managed to figure out the trick. It’s a great moment to see the smug look of the American disappear into pure panic as one of the members of the D agency revealed his hiding place. And with that all’s well that ends well correct?

Wrong. For there was more to this raid than our soldier was privy to. The second raid on the Americains home was all a ploy to disguise his superior’s failure to find anything in the first raid. He intended to make Sakuma a scapegoat in order to keep his reputation clean. He never intended him to find anything. Through some elaborate investigation Sakuma manages to find out this as well as details about the boss of the D agency and his intentions of taking advantage of this matter. He does so well that the boss even offers to train him as a member of the D agency. What we have is a series of schemes in tandem. The American spy was trying to steal intel, a superior officer was trying to cover up his mistake and the boss of the D agency trailing the superior in order to find an exploit to blackmail him into investing more into the D agency. In the beginning Sakuma berated the D agency for making use of underhanded methods and here he now understands that the military is not above such measures. HIs final resolution is interesting in that he has not embraced the D Agency’s philosophy but rather he wishes he can die with honor rather than be used as a tool for someone else’s agenda. To me those things are the same but to a nationalist member of the society of the time it may not be the case.

At the moment while I do love Joker Game, I find it’s being a little too straightforward in it’s storytelling. I feel we could have a greater layer of nuance in its production as this small doesn’t leave much room for moral complexity. Everything is laid out and explained so even a child could understand the plot. In some regards that’s a good thing as simplicity doesn’t mean it’s bad but considering it’s a fairly mature story I would think it would be good to leave things up to interpretation. I for one would have liked to speculate more on just why the Boss walks with a cane despite his legs being perfectly fine. I would have likened it to a psychological tactic in order to make people underestimate him but instead it is spelled out to be a distraction from the bosses real disability. His left prosthetic hand. On that note I am surprised he can get a prosthetic hand of such quality which can fool people into thinking it’s real. I am not certain on the plan of disguising a disability with another disability other than preventing him from being identified by word of mouth. Despite my gripes there is an air of style around this piece; it has an atmosphere that clarifies the word cool. There is a certain suaveness in how the characters carry themselves and the smug knowing smiles that exemplify a kind of hidden badassery. Even if this doesn’t appear to be a particularly deep story, at least it’s going to be an entertaining one.

~AidanAK47~