Full Metal Panic Invisible Victory – 05/06/07[Welcome To The Jungle/Rotten Repose/Giant Killing]

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

Forgive my lack up posts recently as work has gotten rather burdensome which has left me little time to blog. But it seems the past two episodes of Full Metal Panic have bee rather subdued when compared to the first four episodes. WIth Mythril on the run and Amalgam having taken Chidori Sousuke is left without any of the military resources he has had up till this point. So we find him in the middle east fighting in a robot tournament with a new heroine and a odd change of focus. I understand to a degree why this arc exists, after all it wouldn’t really make sense for Sousuke to burst into Amalgam headquarters straight away but this is admittedly a rather lackluster arc that could easily be mistaken for filler. In particular I am not fond of this new girl and if there is one thing I truly hate in a series it’s when they introduce a new girl to fall for the main protagonist when the main romance has been decided.

If this arc is good for anything though it’s showing how Sousuke has changed, for one he seems to have adopted a no killing policy for the moment but he’s still pretty brutal seeing as he stabbed a knife into a guys neck and used that as a threat. It’s nice to see his reactions upon being probed about the past. But Sousuke is the one carrying the show at the moment as the newly introduced characters just feel throwaway and second tier. Things will pick up and signs of doing so are here with Sousuke revealing his agenda to get into the illegal fights of the robot tournament. I also must admit there was some smart advertisement sponsorship going on as the robots now have brands pasted on them making a clever way to integrate product placement without it being intrusive. If it means more funds for this anime then I approve as it does feel like real effort and passion is being put into this anime. The mecha CGI animation remains fairly impressive and the fights are quite good.

As lacking as this arc is, at least we got a good fight out of it as Sousuke takes on a M9 in a illegal fight. It makes for an good twist of fate for Sousuke to fight the machine he used to make use of. Almost a reversal of his previous position where in the enemy would have the less advance tech while Sousuke was riding with the state of the art. The fight itself was good and even outside of it were getting rather dark as Sousukes teammates were almost shot and made into pig feed. Though Lemon jumps into with the utterly unsurprising reveal that he is not a photographer but instead some sort of French intelligence agent. We also learn that our new girl here is also whispered which has the weird aspect that all the girls who fell for Sousuke happened to be whispered and a rather foreboding image of Sousuke looking at her through his robots camera and seeing her as bloodied corpse. Possibly a reminder of his failed attempt to rescue a whispered in the first episode all those years ago or just him acknowledging that the girl will be hunted till the end of her days if her abilities ever got out. New episode looks to be a rather tough situation for SOusuke, one that could have him determine just how much this new girl means to him.

Golden Kamuy – 09 [Gleaming]

by SuperMario, posted in Currently Watching:, Golden Kamuy

At this point, I regard Golden Kamuy as a show with interesting ideas, many memorable characters and well-researched settings, but awkward pacing that tries to cram too many stories and lackluster production. It sure knows how to make one hell of an intriguing twist, though. This episode 9 suggests a plot thread no one saw coming, and maybe that isn’t entirely true either. The revelation that Asirpa might have a blood connection to the Nopperabo guy – the guy who stole all the gold and the only one who knows the exact location. So the next questions should be is this theory feasible and what does that mean in the big picture. For the first question, it could be possible, regarding Asirpa and the Ainu community never receive the full bodies of the victims. Maybe that contribute to his urban legend that the guy bears a faceless feature that could be unrecognizable even by Asirpa. The eyes, however, are the only parts in the face that can’t be changed (theoretically speaking), so the fact that Hijikata sees the resemblance in color in their eye could mean that this is the real thing. Then, if it’s true, will this revelation change the game? I’ll say, pretty much. We know next to nothing about this Nopperabo guy except urban legends, so having him as Asirpa’s father could create necessary internal conflicts and raise the tension to the final showdown. I mean, “I am your Father” is a good shocker for any story.

As we suspected, this new side-villain Henmi is pretty much an one-off show. He’s brilliant at parts, just like Nihei in previous game level, but I don’t like the lame comedic innuendo tone and a breakneck pacing at all. The main reason is that while he’s undoubtedly capable of killing maniacally, he was never a threat to Sugimoto and Asirpa. Golden Kamuy clearly frames his attraction to Sugimoto’s immortal ability with overly BL bait which clearly divides viewers and I’m happened to be on the naysayer’s side. In addition, the story goes through crazy events after another that they don’t have time to sink in. Let’s see, Lt Tsurumi happens to play piano at that same house at the time. There’s Maxim gun machine and then there’s a freaking orca appeared out of the blue sea. And then the humor goes batshit insane with Asirpa torn between saving Sugimoto’s life and the need to use a bathroom, or Sugimoto gets naked in front of her to save the serial killer who’s supposed climax with the way he dies (Asirpa DOESN’T bat her eyelash). If there’s one word to describe both the pacing and the tone of this arc it would be “wacky”. At the very least, it closes this current arc before quickly getting into the next stage…

… which is the reappearance of several 7th unit members, now with a totally new mission. I’m not sure if this face-off will escalate to our main duo’s treasure hunt, but so far I enjoy what I see. This little plot adds new dimension to those soldiers, especially Tanigaki and Oogata (sorry mr Twin, you’re still a walking robot). On the one hand, we have deserted Tanigaki who develops a closer relationship to the Ainu community (he’s changed). On the other hand, we have a quite literally back-from-the-death Oogata whom we later learn doesn’t align with Lt Missing Brain’s goal. Which basically mean they know about the gold and they have different plan on how to use it. Now the shooter and the other twin even have their other goal in mind: kill Sugimoto. The shoot-off pans out nicely, although… isn’t it way simpler to just ask Taginaki out and then shoot him? This makes so little sense. He also does an (unnecessary) explanation about his precise snipe, but didn’t he just recovered from a near-death? I guess this will be Oonata’s grave mistake, as Tanigaki now obtains a gun – Nihei’s bear-hunting gun, with only one bullet. It speaks very well to the theme of Golden Kamuy, where at the end of the day, human is nothing but a wild animal like bears. Whether that single silver bullet gonna kill the (two) werewolves, we’ll have to wait and see, but I won’t be surprised if all three are dead in the next episode.

Megalo Box – 8/9 [Deadline of the Dream/A Dead Flower Shall Never Bloom]

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

Hello again everyone and welcome to another (2) week(s) of Megalo Box! First off, apologies for missing last week. Was a bit hectic. Still, means we can cover the rest of the Mikio arc in a single post! Smaller victories! Lets jump in.

To start off, Megalo Box continues to stand out. The rough lineart, the style in every scene and the narrative are lovely. Mikio’s build up, backstory and motivations all made me enjoy him as a character. He was a complete toss-pot of a person, terrible dude, but as a villain I enjoyed him. I am a little annoyed that they are playing up his “pride”, a good loser, at the end with his respect towards Joe however. It just doesn’t fit his character to me. This man was willing to blackmail his opponent, run with AI Gear and inject himself with what can only be drugs all to steal the family company from his sister. These are not the actions of a “good man” and I hope Megalo Box doesn’t attempt to redeem him. Not all characters need to be “likeable”, and we already have Aragaki for this role.

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Hisone to Masotan – 08 [Limited time offer! Spicy granny flavor]

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

Readers who read my previous coverages on HisoMaso would know that I wasn’t very happy with the direction this show took. There’s a mean-spirited tone, and just downright nonsensical with the plot to make our girls fallen in love and then crush their hearts to pieces. But with this episode, I’m happy to say that HisoMaso finds a much stronger shape and it justifies most of the events happened before. So, the main plot going forward gonna focus about the ritual, which actually to move the giant big legendary sleeping dragon to its new bed, and that process can take up to 3 whole days without stop. The real challenge with this is the girls have to fight not to sleep for the whole 72 hours, otherwise that gigantic dragon would go off track. That actually sounds refreshing, for once the overarching plot isn’t going to be “saving the world and destroy bad guys” like I afraid, and there’s still some actual stake in there. Moreover, this ritual speaks well to this strange yet whimsical world.

We also know the true identity of the yogurt old lady (it’s about goddamn time). Turns out she was a OTF pilot back in the last time they carried the mission, and she proves to be a good addition to this cast. Her wise advice regarding how they fight with the lack of sleep, for example, is to sleep, on the ground that they have to be in sync with the dragons in order to ride them normally even when they’re asleep. After a brief argument with Hisone (in which I find her reason a bunch of rubbish. Man, her reasons never make sense to me), the old wise woman proceeds to do just that: let them relax and just listen to the sound of their dragons. This goes well in the end and for me, the episode brings me back to the show after a somewhat disappointing middle part.

So we’ll have a celebration (in which HisoMaso phrases it as “Ritual” huh? Will there be any sacrifice here?), we have the torii gate, the dragons and their pilots as the main players, and naturally we need to have shire maidens too. Which comes to the aspect I’m not confident about HisoMaso: the romances. While I personally enjoy the growing chemistry of Hisone and Okonogi, I can’t say the same with Hosino and the captain whatever-his-name-is. It feels hamfisted at best that they need to show us that these girls have some romantic feeling beside piloting dragon. Furthermore, the reveal in the end, the Okonogi is an important figure of “Divinity department” and his apparent love-interest put Okonomi-Hisone relationship into another light and I’m not sure if I’m on boat with this twist. Now that relationship becomes a three-way love which… is how anime plot tends to do, which is too say it’s repetitive and tiresome. I’m growing fond with Okonogi, however, and I especially like the part where Hisone tells him about the “original shitty horror movie which just released in Bluray” part, so yeah at least for now it’s not a deal-breaker. This episode does a pretty admiring job of pulling this show back from their weak and misfired last couple of episodes, at least for now I’m looking forward to see how HisoMaso going to wrap itself up.

Hinamatsuri – 09 [Life is about Survival]

by SuperMario, posted in Currently Watching:, Hinamatsuri

It’s a bit late in the game now that Hinamatsuri introduces another set of new characters, and unlike these new additions we’ve seen the last few weeks, Mao looks to be a prominent character, at least on the same level with Anzu and Hitomi. Part of me afraid that she won’t have time to reach her full potential, consider the fact that we only have roughly 3 episodes left. The bigger remaining part of me welcomes her with all my heart, since Hinamatsuri is always at its best when they play around with the new characters. Nao is another excellent addition to this ensemble cast. She’s more composed and mature than both Anzu and Hina, and they way she can mimic their voices perfectly speaks well to her sensitive and her big heart. We’re heading to more tragicomedy territory here, one that isn’t in Anzu’s level, but Hinamatsuri again succeeds in making this segment hilarious and achingly sad at the same times. There’s obviously a reference to Cast Away (although I haven’t seen that movie so I can’t speak for how much relevant), and it’s whimsical in the way she asserts Hina and Anzu’s voices (especially Hina, where she only has one line, appropriately – “feed me”). But her vulnerability alone makes it a sad undertone. No human enjoy being lonely, and I’m quite surprised that she keeps her sane for that long before she snaps out of it. She’s on the quest to get into land now (which according to the map she’ll probably get to Thailand or China), and I guess it’s the time when we get back to the flashforward bit in the first episode.

The second segment focuses on the yakuza part and introduces another character, but this time this new Nitta’s yakuza brother is weak, compare to all the new players we’ve seen so far. In fact, he’s my least favorite character in this universe, and it doesn’t help that I don’t care much about Nitta and this whole new yakuza boss affair. I can, however, point out two of my favorite moments on that segment. The first being Hina’s insensitive comment that leads the old man into (brief) coma. And the second is the striking image of Nitta waking up and finding himself holed up in a concrete box, which reminds me a great deal of Baccano. But the main plot doesn’t carry much weight or have anything specific to say except that Nitta is 100% behind uniting the yakuza group (which in itself doesn’t really mean much). For my take, I believe this story can be more hilarious if Hina involved in rescuing Nitta, or if Nitta just has it enough and make the scene. But nope, it went the most conventional way which also means it falls flat for me.

In the last segment, we shift back the focus on Hina and Nitta as Hina plans to make a “surprise party” for Nitta. Being Hina, the surprise party also means there is no “surprise”, nor “party” at all. While I enjoy most of what happened, this feels like a repeated version of Hina messing up we’ve experienced before. The funniest moments are undoubtedly when Nitta sees the whole “celebration”, which looks more like a mogue; and Hina rising up from the “coffin”, with her lame t-shirt and equally lame greeting. It doesn’t surprise Nitta that much though (more like nothing surprises him anymore), and his stoned-face reaction captures well the awkwardness of this surprise party.

Steins;Gate 0 – 8 [Dual of Antinomy -Antinomic Dual-]

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

Hello everyone! Another week, another ridiculously pretentious episode name for Steins;Gate 0! This week we have suffering, lots and lots of suffering, spread around our characters liberally. Lets jump in!

So before we get into specifics, lets talk general notes. Overall, I really enjoyed this episode. It didn’t spend the whole time being a downer, sprinkling some amusing or hopeful moments in there. It showed us shots of Okabe’s life if he made another choice, making it clear he couldn’t keep on the way he has. Some would call it melodrama, and they wouldn’t be wrong, but for me it works here. Melodrama lives or dies based on how much the audience cares for its characters. And with how Steins;Gate 0 is formatted and its character focus, only the ones who care would make it this far, so I think it worked out. As a Steins;Gate fan, its character focused episodes like with all of the references to earlier episodes and events that I love the most.

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Golden Kamuy – 08 [Eyes of a Murderer]

by SuperMario, posted in Currently Watching:, Golden Kamuy

Wait, did we seriously just watch a guy who gets aroused with the idea of killing? I mean, what a way to explore his twisted desire and what a visual Golden Kamuy presents here. A glowing circle in his pant? Sure, why not? It’s weird, it’s whimsical in an awesome way. The idea is that this guy Henmi has a distinctive approach to killing (and be killed), and I’m pretty sure most of serial killers behave this way, whose killing patterns are influenced by traumatic events in the past. He reminds me a fair bit to Dr. Hannibal Lecter who become known as Hannibal the Cannibal because he witnessed his sister was cannibalized by a band of Nazi collaborators when he was young. The rest of the episode, however, can never top this. While on the topic, the appearance of this new tattooed character Henmi opens up too many issues. First, by focusing on his narrative in the episode’s last part, the show makes a tonal shift that is frankly quite jarring. We never know much about him except for his flashback, thus he just can’t carry the show compared to say, Sugimoto and Asirpa. Worse off, because this guy takes a central role in the last half, our duo behaves like walking sticks. I don’t see any personality in Sugimoto whatsoever.

In the big picture, with this episode I have a clearer idea of what kind of show Golden Kamuy is. I’m pretty sure now that Lt Tsurumi and the old man Hijikata are our final bosses, and to get there Sugimoto and Asirpa will have to face several smaller arcs involving particular prisoners with skinned tattoo. I’m not that fond with this approach to be frank. And now I don’t even consider on which side Sugimoto will destroy first. The way I see it, there’s going to be a three-way face off between the Good (Sugimoto), the Bad (Hijikata) and the Ugly (Lt Tsurumi. Note: purely subjective opinion here). These three forces are the only parties to know about the true size of the treasure to boost. At least in this episode the Bad and the Ugly have a brief encounter where Hijikata raids the bank in order to… retrieve his darling katana and earn some cash. Yeah, OBVIOUSLY it makes sense. What the Immortal and the Ainu girl need to concern, however, is their comrade Escape Artist gets himself caught by the prisoners. The gang, surprisingly, doesn’t treat him badly, at least not yet, in exchange for other skin tattoos. They underestimate Sugimoto at this point, mostly because they have never heard of him, so I suspect that this Henmi business will be when the prisoners take notice and see the threats in Sugimoto’s ability to survive.

Another change in plot direction and in the next villain also results in another change in Golden Kamuy’s setting, and this time, it’s a treat to watch. It might cost the show a bit of pacing issues (look, Sugimoto, let’s help us catch the whale first!), but the herring fish scene is a totally fresh air. We have boats floating on the sea as the fishermen try to catch the big whale, and much later when we see the red herring from fishes and Henmi briefly explains Sugimoto about all the works. I hope we get more of that, but the fact remains that Henmi is ready to throw himself to Sugimoto, quite literally, even at the cost of his own life. Although Sugimoto never seems thrilled to kill these kinds of nutcase, he only kills to defend his life.

Hisone to Masotan – 07 [Kingdom of Love]

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

Hmmm, I do feel like I’m watching some propaganda in HisoMaso this week, in which it tries to sell us the ideas that women’s low self-esteem and insecurity are the best way to “soulmate” their dragons, and worse, learning the whole conspiracy method of crushing these poor girls’ hearts to make sure they’ll ever love again, so they can devote all their hearts to pilot the dragons? WHAT? Okay, propaganda is a bit exaggerating, but I can’t help but feel the mean-spiritedness in this approach, especially virtually no one in the higher-ups question about it or that Ilboshi guy’s decision morally, instead they just roll with it. Haizz, they play those up for laugh, and I guess they set all this up so that the girls can overcome those, but still I feel a bit uneasy watching all these play out. Especially seeing the young mug Okonogi tries his damnest to slide between following his orders and just have fun with Hisone. I figure my uneasiness lies in the fact that these girls, our D-Pilots are the victims and clueless about all this. Ways to depreciate our women and their intelligence here, Mari Osada.

SO the plan is to figure out all the girls’ potential romantic interests, push it a bit and then squeeze that love like breaking an egg. Haizz. This plot gets thicken fast as Okonogi is granted a chance to go to a date with Hisone, watching some lame horror movie (wait, is it the same film with the one in After the Rain?). Meanwhile, Kinutsugai becomes an informant (because of Kingdom!) by that guy Ilboshi again. He now becomes a sore thumb here as beside babblings all those bullshits about white lovers, purity and what’s not, he acts equally stupid and manipulative too. To make things worse, this week our dragons get left out, in place for these stupid romantic threads (that include Hoshino and “the guy who ticks all the boxes” and Hitomi’s multiple interests).

The show’s writer is most infamously known for injecting unnecessary and drawn-out romances and it seems like she again hits the streak in this episode. It’s not enough to bring HisoMaso down, at least not yet, so I’ll reserve my final feeling when this all business about the ceremony is dealt with, but for now I’m not that keen on the direction it laid out. It should focus on the dragons – their pilots relationship, or even focus to develop our girls, not this. And HisoMaso still holds their cards too close regarding the real identity of the yogurt lady. Too much sniffing and licking without revealing won’t tease people anymore. I’m a bit concerned with HisoMaso now, it looks like it will head dive into the deep ocean full of sharks and I’m not sure if it ever going to recover from that.

Hinamatsuri – 08 [And It’s The Same Old Hina]

by SuperMario, posted in Currently Watching:, Hinamatsuri

The core dynamic of Nitta and Hina again is put into test this week, this time with more pressing matters. There’s a woman from Hina’s world comes to bring her back home, except – you know – she’s also scared shitless about Hina’s power. That’s the first thing that makes this new addition, named Kei, different from someone in her role. Kei’s more than willing to take shortcuts to her duty, and poor Anzu has to keep her from running away many times. Kei has a checklist to track Hina’s development in which she expects Hina to trip anytime soon. That blue hair girl passes all the test with flying colors and I especially like the way Kei and Anzu tested her by buying the puppy and disguise it as a homeless dog. Hilarious as it always is, but when Hinamatsuri wants to, it can ring the emotion so true. It might be a bit obvious the way the show wants to show us how Hina has grown while living with Nitta, but it mostly gets away with it by framing that change from Kei’s astounded eyes.

When learning about her going back to her world, she not in the least refuses. Grown girl accepts the consequences after all. The more important thing is how to break it to Nitta. Hina tries, and fails, in various methods to get Nitta noticed (most notably her “byebye” T-shirt, and when she’s frustrated she rolls and float freely in the air, creating a nice and weird visual quirk. Nitta takes the news calmly, he takes her to eat her favorite ikura bowl for the last time and says it when it’s time for their separation, that while she’s a pain in the ass, he enjoyed the time they spent together. That might be why the last laugh doesn’t really win me over because it kinda destroys my goodwill towards Nitta. But to be fair, Nitta has always been an ass himself, so they pretty deserve each other’s company.

In between that crisis, we have a side story of a new Hina’s classmate, Mami, who walks the fine line between a complete fool and an adorable fool. What worse than showing your true power to the bad people? It’s showing your true power to the eight-grader syndrome kid who believe they’re the centre of the universe (in fact they’re closely to grade 8th here). Hilarity ensues when Mami decides to confront Hina upfront (and freaked out to the point of lying on the ground). Hinamatsuri is in total control of the tones here, building up her satisfaction and her desire to brag about her “superpower” just about right, while never overplays her humiliation. Having the crowd total in their straight faces works much better than them laughing and ridiculing the poor girl (especially love both Aizawa and Hitomi’s tense expressions there). There’s so much good laugh in this second part and never at once the show belittles Mami’s hijinks. Well, turn out the parts about those middle-schoolers are amongst my favorite parts of the show. With such a diverse cast with strong and funny characters who always found themselves in absurdist situations, Hinamatsuri retains its touch this week.

Steins;Gate 0 – 7 [Eclipse of Vibronic Transition -Vibronic Transition-]

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

Oh boy, Steins;Gate 0 was definitely a thing this week, whatever that means. This time we have clashing styles, interesting plot twists and one hell of a cliffhanger. Lets jump in!

To start off, lets get the obvious out of the way. Steins;Gate 0 is not an action series and it shows. The opening “combat” scenes of this episode were… weak, to be kind. Animation was stunted and in general it just wasn’t great. This isn’t unexpected though. Steins;Gate’s design/style doesn’t lend itself well to smooth, fluid fights. It has always been a series focused on its characters, not the action. That said, the actual narrative portion of the “combat” was pretty interesting. We have no idea who the leather-clad women is, though I have suspicions, and Mr.Braun’s entrance was both unexpected and exciting. I have always wanted to see more of his character, get a deeper look into our landlord ever since Steins;Gate, and we finally have the chance. And boy did this week spend a lot of time with him.

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