Megalo Box – 11 [A Deadmarch]

by Lenlo, posted in Finished Series: Action, Megalo Box

Incredible Megalo Box… Simply incredible. This week was perfect in every way but one, and at this point that one is easily overlooked. Let’s skip this preamble and jump right in!

Megalo Box had a lot going on this week as we see the culmination of a lot of characters big arcs. Starting off, lets go with Joes. The symbolism of his shoddy gear, which we only saw him wear back as Junk Dog, falling off through the fight was amazing. We saw that each time his gear fell off he took the lead in the fight, hitting Burroughs hard. It was a rather obvious, but still great, metaphor for Joe refusing to be/fighting back against “Junk Dog”. We saw that Joe didn’t want to throw this fight, but was content to stay “Junk Dog”. Atleast until Nanbu and Yuri/Sachio stepped in that is. What’s interesting to me is Yuri is Joe’s dividing line. Yuri is what separates Joe from Junk Dog, ever since their first fight which woke him up. I love everything about it.

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Steins;Gate 0 – 10 [Pandora of Provable Existence -Forbidden Cubicle-]

by Lenlo, posted in Finished Series: Mystery/Suspense, Steins;Gate 0

Welcome one and all to another week of Steins;Gate 0! This week we have fluffy, lovable dates, awkward fan service and terrible revelations. Lets jump in!

So overall this week felt mostly like a filler episode. I understand that some of the contents were necessary for relationship building and such. That it was a sort of “Calm before the storm” as things begin in earnest. That doesn’t change the fact that, outside of Okabe’s “date” with Maho, nothing much really mattered this episode. The contents ranged from lovable cute character moments to terribly awkward fan service, which I will get into in a moment. My hope is that this is the slowest Steins;Gate 0 gets. That after this, with Okabe outing himself to Maho and her revelations with the laptop, the central conflict will come back into play. We will have to wait and see. Now though, lets get into specifics.

Continue reading “Steins;Gate 0 – 10 [Pandora of Provable Existence -Forbidden Cubicle-]” →

Golden Kamuy – 10 [Fellow Traveler]

by SuperMario, posted in Currently Watching:, Golden Kamuy

New episode, new season, new plan, new scenery and possible new set of enemy too. Considered Golden Kamuy’s track record, I won’t be surprised if the new face Kiroranke, at the risk of Asirpa slaps me on my face for saying so. He’s in the interesting position in all this, both an ex-7th Unit Hokkaido, and as an Ainu people who happens to be a very close friend of Asirpa’s father. The look in his eyes regarding Shiraishi tattooed skin, however, inform me that he wants that flesh badly. For whatever reason, I think it’s a bad move from Sugimoto to reveal this important piece of information, and at his friend’s risk to boost. It should be clear that Kiroranke is also interested in finding the gold, although for what purpose would prove to be a calling card on his character. I doubt he does it for greed, for instance, and I double doubt he does it for the Ainu people (remember the Ainu community considers the gold cursed?). What motivate him, as I’m guessing now, has to do with the relationship between him and Asirpa’s father.

The ball has dropped but I’m quite surprised that it isn’t at all dramatic. In fact, I’m a bit let down by the revelation, both on how Asirpa and Sugimoto take it almost too well, and how the truth is come out from a total stranger that we don’t even know before. It feels info-dump at best, my friend. One interesting bit we can take away from his story, however, is that Nopperapo guy, and Asirpa in effect, are only half-Ainu. My first reaction was that I don’t want Golden Kamuy goes into this direction, since the story would make more sense if they’re full Ainu. In some sense this show is an exploration of the Anui and the interaction between them and Japanese people. But now thinking back, the representation of the Ainu culture has been portrayed with respect with (as far as I know) accurate details. Moreover, from the small pieces we gathered so far, with green eyes and all that, they could very well have Russian blood. It’s an interesting way Golden Kamuy is leading here for sure, but with only few episodes left how the hell they can seal off the deal here? I’m not sure if we even get to meet this Faceless guy at this rate.

In other parts, we have the continuation of the hunt last week, and my God that was a smart plan from Tanigaki until Lt Tsurumi appears out of nowhere (gosh, he’s everywhere) with his team that effectively kill off all the tension it built up so far. And do we really believe that Ogata and Nikaidou would be that dumb that don’t notice a whole unit tailing them? then whole string of absurdist events happen: The CGI bear makes a comeback, Missing Brain dancing while slicing an ear off (yep, I referred to the infamous scene in Reservoir Dogs), Tanigaki somehow gets away unscathed (do the unit forgets that he’s still a soldier?) and somehow because Missing Brain is enjoying slicing ears and noses that he forgets to pursue Ogata, hmm? Part of me still glad that Tanigaki made it alive and now live back with the Ainu people, except that… Ogata is still alive somewhere, you know.

This episode again touches at the immortality theme and the thrust to obtain that power with the tale of mermaid and a girl who eats its flesh to remain young. In fact, Golden Kamuy always has this fascinating perspective to death and immortal. At one point, Sugimoto said that he is immortal because he misses his chance to die. Both Hijikata and Lt Tsurumi seek immortal in some ways as an ultimate power. But like the tale of mermaid illustrates, to obtain that treasure can become a curse, as they can do nothing but watch the people they love pass away eventually.

Darling in the Franxx – 20[A New World]

by AidanAK47, posted in Currently Watching:, Darling in the Franxx

Suddenly, Aliens. If you are surprised by this sudden plot twist then I am guessing you are new to Trigger works. For in some form or another space gets involved. Indeed this is fairly reminiscent of Kill la Kill or Gurren Laggan and I will toot my own horn about somewhat anticipating it. I at least was right on the money about Father and the leaders being of extraterrestrial origin. But well here’s the deal. Turns out the Klax were the good guys all along who were trying to protect the planet from alien invaders who tried to drain it’s resources. They kicked the Aliens ass before and went underground to prepare for a second attack in the future. Meanwhile humanity surfaced on the planet and the Aliens, in a mark of rather genius manipulation, infiltrated their society, introduced Manga energy to get them to slowly kill the planet and even got humans to fight off the Klax for them. The Alien race is named VIRM and as a Reddit poster pointed out, VIRM and APE are a clear anagram of VAMPIRE. So yep, now they have revealed themselves and disabled the Klax queen while setting the planet to self destruct because we need a big finale.

Naturally the ground troops are wondering just what in the hell is going on and we got complications with the team in regards to Kokoro and Mitsuru. Both seem to be remembering unconsciously as they call each other by name, promoting an obligatory headache. Actually it is a common trope in regards to memory stuff but why is remembering always followed by some kind of headache? Shouldn’t it be more along the lines of just them accidentally recalling and wondering how they knew? I suppose the boring answer is that APE put in safeguards to [prevent them from recalling old memories. But in that regard this isn’t so much memory erasure but rather locking away memories. Well memories or no memories there is a problem, Kokoro is pregnant. But nobody knows she’s pregnant and sees it as some regular illness. So she’s going to get real surprised when her belly swells and suddenly she has contractions. Not sure how Darling is going to handle this particular plot point so close to the end goal but it’s going to be troublesome if they need to pilot.

I can’t say I appreciate the whole thing with the Loli Klax queen basically NTRing Zero Two. Much like the previous episode regarding Ichigo getting between Hiro and Zero Two, this feels like a forced development. It’s obvious that they are setting up Zero Two coming back to Hiro and just powering up the new Strelizia into some super form to take down the aliens. I doubt this series is going for an end of evangelion ending despite how hard it’s foreshadowing such a turnout. I said before that if this series was going to take a dark turn, it would be at the halfway point so now is too late. At most it will be Zero Two dying by series end which is very hinted at. But if they go that route then…this would basically be repeat of Gurren Lagann’s ending? Minus the giant battle on the milky way while using Galaxies as shurikens. Of course not exactly the same but the beats may be quite similar which leaves me with mixed feelings. For throughout the entire series there has been constant foreshadowing and hints at much darker tidings to come and I don’t believe that is just me looking too deeply into things. To me this series felt like it was promising to dive into deeper more mature themes but ultimately skirted the edge without truly risking anything. So i do feel cheated in that regard, much like watching something that was putting up a front of being deeper than it was. I do feel like they could have taken more interesting routes but didn’t and instead played the safe game. Which can be fine but rather underhanded when you promise more than what you are.

Hisone to Masotan – 09 [Eeeek!]

by SuperMario, posted in Currently Watching:, Hisone to Masotan

After a pretty excellent episode last week, HisoMaso goes into the direction I’m afraid the most: exploring the romance aspect that by all means we don’t really need in the first place. And they frame it in a manner I cannot get behind. Lets see, due to these girls develop a certain feeling, they intoxicate their dragons and now the mission can potentially be halted? So now loving someone is a national crime now? Why do you need to put love in the middle of everything, certain writer? To put more salt to that wound, those romances aren’t that good  to begin with. On one side, we have a love triangle in which that love rival just basically stalks the girl. And then… Look, you don’t suddenly realize you have a feeling for someone like a lightning bolt like this (with all the screaming and stuff). On the other side, we have a crush between the two people who don’t even have normal conversation, and then that old cliche “falling down the stair and accidently kiss”? This trope is so old and tired that it might be older than myself. Seriously, it kills the little interest I have left for HisoMaso.

We also learn one crucial detail for this upcoming ritual, which is there’s going to be sacrifice, as they put it “the chosen one “ (and somehow the episode title sums up perfectly my feeling, eeeek!!), and if it isn’t quite clear right now that person would be Natsume, who has a crush on Okonogi. Consider how long we know this girl (ehhh, 20 minutes?), it’s hard to feel anything even if she ends up as a sacrifice, which I doubt. The question at hand, however, is how they treat the dragons out of their stomachache (okay, the technical term is anastomosis)  and how they discipline poor Hisone and Hoshino (aaaahhhh). I’m never fond with those love webs but now as they are in it, let’s just see how HisoMaso rolls. To be honest, I think the show would turn out better if they focus on the miko instead of these dragon pilots who experiencing their aching first love.

Hinamatsuri – 10 [Like a River Stream]

by SuperMario, posted in Currently Watching:, Hinamatsuri

Our favorite girls Hitomi and Anzu drive central plots this week, even at the cost of Hina and Mao (well, the latter doesn’t matter much, but why does she have such limited appearance?). I don’t have much of a complaint though, since stories involving Hitomi or Anzu are usually Hinamatsuri’s strongest. The humor of this first half, for example, is an extended gag of Hitomi is just too nice she can say no to others requests, and manages to be really good at all of them. It’s also a bit of social commentaries about people who hole themselves up with endless cycle of works that at the end of the day, they lose the drive that keep them going. I’m sure it’s an issue that not only relevant to Japan, but to the Western culture too. The moments where she just literally falls into sleep just after getting home with work uniform and the takeaway dinner sounds strangely relevant. In addition, the two skits this week also make fun of irresponsible adults who keep pushing the child into the dangerous path. Utako is especially (hilariously) wicked this week, forcing her underaged worker to sign a brand new apartment contract (with discounted price, but still). It’s hilarious to see the most sensible adults so far is Nitta, who feels taken a bit aback by Utako’s action. And Nitta being the nicest adult around is a pretty sad fact. I enjoy the numerous random jobs she’s taking, chief among them a mascot who gets punched by the Hero of Justice; and work in an office work and gets bullied by the senpai and all that. Poor girl. Consider that she doesn’t even work for money or even aim for anything higher. What is the point of all that?

One of the missed opportunity in that segment, however, is the questionable loli character design of Hitomi’s Mom, whom at first I thought was Hitomi’s sister. I suspect her childish appearance will become a central gag at some points, but the serious gap between her age and appearance just put me completely off. There’s a fight between her and Hitomi which started all this ruckus, and I like the way that she agrees to go along with all that, just to show you how adults’ mind can work in a mysterious way.

Anzu has a more heartwarming part. I’ll be upfront on this, Anzu’s material has always been stronger than any of those character-centric segment, because Hinamatsuri mixes the right balance between sad, grounded emotion with absurdist part (and cute little face). This last part, she learns a hard way of don’t relying on the gambling money, the money in which she doesn’t work to earn it. Having earned her allowance, it’s surprisingly sweet to see that she desires nothing for herself (wait, where’s the game?). She eventually decides to buy the neck massage machine for her foster parents, and Hitomi (wait, does she have some free time to spare now?) fills up the gap. It could’ve been a nice plan, until another irresponsible adult appears, Sabu, whom you might remember for ratting Nitta out last episode (can you read my tone here?). It could’ve been fine, too, if after winning the first bet, she’d just stop. That’s how the gambling work in general, make you win the first few times, let you sip the taste of greed before taken every penny away from you. Anzu learns that necessary lesson, and like Hitomi points out in the end, it’s her heart that matters the most as a gift. And while those coupons would cost almost nothing, I’m sure her foster parents will treasure it more than things that money can buy.

Full Metal Panic Invisible Victory – 08[One-Man Force]

by AidanAK47, posted in Currently Watching:, Full Metal Panic Invisible Victory

Well…shit. Sadly having read the Full Metal Panic novels quite a while back I was prepared for this particular development and thus wasn’t quite as effected by it as I would have been. bUt I am certain to anyone who is watching this unspoiled that the way this episode started would have caught them completely off guard. But yes indeed, the girl who helped out our protag for the past few episodes and acted as surrogate female lead has been gunned down and is dead. I find myself in two minds over this particular twist as it has its positives and negatives. For one Nami’s death was unexpected as hell and this may be the very first time I seen someone get taken hostage and actually followed through on killing them. Think back to any other time you see this situation and without doubt you would imagine the girl getting out alive with absolute certainty. Yet nope, the countdown happens and just right before it ends at which you think something is going to save her, the villain decides to throw her forward and shoot her in the back. Shouting that the same fate awaits Chidori once he returns to headquarters.

It helps establish our villain in this arc and give Sousuke cause to throw away his recent no killing policy and just go full Rambo. But on the other hand, it is a very “women in refrigerator” twist. RIght from the start Nami was raised to be a sacrificial lamb, simply because killing off the actual main cast would have been far too cold. Her entire purpose is to give Sousuke motivation, development and drive with her death. That’s rather…hmmm. In the previous episode where Kyouko go hit by shrapnel that at least served a purpose in destroying the safe haven of the school and showing the danger that Sousuke and Kaname present by remaining. Nami on the other hand, she was literally tossed in there to die. I normally don’t tend to take matters of gender roles in fiction jinto account as it is fairly murky waters that depends on the opinion of the observer but if I was challenged on this plot point being somewhat sexist I fear I might not have a rebuttal.

But that aside, the previous episodes may have been lacking with the downtime from the main plot but this episode was an action extravaganza. I mean truly the choreography of these fights was exceptional with the pure calculated moves of Sousuke just tearing through every opponent he faced. I have been praising the hell out of the mecha animators and they truly went all out for this. The action was fast and furious, never slowing do a moment to have the protagonist monologue in his head, as a matter of fact that may be the best aspect of this episode. The final confrontation between Sousuke and Kurama was sublime, barely a word of dialogue yet plans unfolding on screen through pure animation. Sousuke shooting the ground to raise smoke to cover himself while he moved position, Kurama dropping a grenade on the stairs as he ran, Sousuke quite literally casually kicking aside the grenade and even the mind games with the door and Sousuke’s bloodtrail. I loved it, may be the best action sequence i seen in quite a while. I even like this villain even though he’s mid boss level at best. While a bit of a gimmick I like the detail that he quit smoking and has taken to chewing carrot sticks to get over his addiction. I also like his high degree of professionalism with his job and knowing that the police chief would be worthless.

But I really like that he fully admits that he hated killing Nami but it was just an effective means to ensure that Sousuke would hunt him to the ends of the earth first and give him time to plan an ambush. Any other villain I can see getting practical orgasmic over killing defenseless women but this guy was at least decent enough to hate having to resort to it. Even at the end when Sousuke won and he was going to die without giving him a thing, he tell Sousuke what he knows after Sousuke reveals that he did it all out of love for Chidori. Which he finds stupid but is moved enough to let him know where to look. Oddly enough I can’t seem to hate this guy. Anyway with another volume covered we won’t be getting a episode next friday as the animation team takes a well deserved break. I get the feeling this series is pushing Xebec to it’s limits and they truly are bringing their full A game to this. My hope is they can make it to covering the last of the FMP novels as to leave FMP unfinished again after all these years would be a serious shame. Though I am worried that this series may not be doing as well as it should due to a lot not watching it thanks to the need to watch all previous seasons, not to mention the really strong lineup this season of competitors with lower bars of entry. I hope in Japan this series is getting the attention it deserves and i know I sure as hell will be buying the blu-ray.

Megalo Box – 10 [The Die Is Cast]

by Lenlo, posted in Finished Series: Action, Megalo Box

Hello and welcome to another week of Megalo Box, with perhaps the best pre-finale hype episode ever. This week we have amazing music, fantastic language skills and lots of converging plot threads. Lets jump in!

First, numero uno, Megalo Box has the best soundtrack of this season. It’s simply fantastic. Pepe Iglesias’ theme was on for maybe 30 seconds and I already fell in love with it. It just oozes style and reminds me of Cowboy Bebop with the rhythm and what I believe is a trumpet. It also fits his character perfectly, with it providing a majority of Pepe’s characterisation this episode. It’s a shame he was taken out so quickly but we will get to that in just a moment. We also had Yuri’s theme this episode which was barely a piece of music, frankly. Hopefully Megalo Box has more in store for Yuri because so far its music has been on point. I mean, c’mon, just listen to this and this. Are they not the hypest tracks you’ve ever heard?

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Steins;Gate 0 – 9 [Pandora of Eternal Return -Pandora’s Box-]

by Lenlo, posted in Finished Series: Mystery/Suspense, Steins;Gate 0

Welcome, another week another dose of Steins;Gate 0. This week is a very relaxed, calm episode for the most part so we can wind down from last weeks tragic drama. Lets jump in!

This week was, compared to last, a slow one and that’s a good thing. The main plot with Amadeus is laid out and Okabe now has his motivation, so letting everything stew for a while should help us reconnect with all the characters. This episode really seemed like a general role call sort of thing. Here are the ones that matter, here’s all of our plot threads like Suzuha’s desperation and Kagari’s amnesia or Maho’s secrecy. It was a good change of pace after the packed drama of last week. Steins;Gate 0 also took the opportunity, the quiet moments, to explore Okabe’s mental condition and the general state of the world. Because of this not much actually happened, but it was a good check-in sort of episode before things no doubt really get going.

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Darling in the Franxx – 18/19[When the Sakura Blooms/Inhumanity]

by AidanAK47, posted in Currently Watching:, Darling in the Franxx

It’s hard not to get a foreboding feeling when the squad decides to hold a wedding for Kokoro and Mitsuri, especially when you consider the previous time this studio animated a wedding scene. Yep, it was fairly obvious that things would go south and south they did go as the two lovebirds were torn apart and had their memories erased. Not sure what APE is really trying to accomplish with this and it does feel like a bit of a forced development for the sake of drama. I originally thought this would be the catalysts for Hiro and the others to turn against Father and begin some sort of rebellion and the end of this episode certainly hinted towards that outcome. Though in the end it turned out that Hiro and crew just went to father, asked for an explanation and got told nothing. Thus his rebellion is to ask Father to kindly let them go after they complete their last mission. For as we all know Father has proven to be very trustworthy and most likely will adhere to this promise with no strings attached whatsoever. Sigh…admittedly these guys are basically just ignorant kids but I find it most silly that they can’t seem to comprehend the idea of Father betraying them.

Without a doubt their last mission will be some sort of suicide mission or Fathers version of “Letting them go free” basically means killing them. As much special treatment the squad has got, I doubt they would be willing to let them out into the world, especially considering that they declare two of them getting married to be “Dangerous” Ikuno’s little Yuri infatuation with ichigo got rather suddenly resolved but it was nice to see Ichigo compare her own unrequited feelings for Hiro and understand what Ikuno was going through. Thus allowing her to let her down gently instead of the predictable response of pushing them away or the fan wish fulfillment route of Ichigo suddenly turning gay.

With the second episode we get a exposition dump on the history of the world from the perspective of Dr Franxx and for a show that was so tight knit about revealing the setting it takes place in, I find this sudden exposition dump to be rather underwhelming. For one the planets history turned out to be far more simple and straightforward than I previously thought which effectively killed the interest it drummed up in me before. So the mysterious APE organisation just showed up out of nowhere, taught humanity to make use of Magma energy and then used that to push humanity to hand control of everything to them. Mining the planets Magma ended up slowly killing it and the Klax seem to be some sort of Antibody to stop Humanity from screwing up the planet beyond repair. It’s all very unsurprising, and rather uninteresting.

The one point of some interest is that Dr Franxx seems to have a obsession with the Klax queen and looks to have creating Hiro’s quad using part of her hair. At least that’s what I assume as others seem to be suggesting that Franxx created Zero Two but with the previous flashback it showed that he clearly found Zero Two and was surprised by her existence. Plus the klax queen is blue and Hiro appears to be growing blue horns. Ultimately this episode killed a lot of the previous interest drummed up by the mystery of this world. Now the only things left are revealing who the APE leaders are and what exactly are Klax. Though I am betting the APE leaders are some Alien beings. As a last note, props to Futoshi for not taking advantage of Kokoro’s erased memories to get her back as his partner and Zorome seems to have truly lost any faith in his revered father.