Kiznaiver – 11

by AidanAK47, posted in Currently Watching:, Kiznaiver

I believe I finally figured out something much like Agata of this episode did. Over the course of watching Kiznaiver something in the back of my mind bugged me about it. It was something I couldn’t quite put my finger on but after watching this episode I believe it’s finally hit me. I now know what’s wrong with this series and it’s truly it’s most evident here. For you see, I don’t think Kiznaiver was truly planned out. I think they had an idea of the themes they wanted to touch and knew what the quirks of what the characters were going to be. I believe they had a vague concept of how they were going to go about this but didn’t actually plan it out. So they took these concepts and just stuck them together and hoped the end result would make a tuned out narrative. For looking at just how this show has conducted itself and now seeing the endgame I truly see that it’s was floundering around for a concrete plot. This all feels unplanned and not thought out with how it sets up foreshadowing of future developments only to disregard it entirely. But let us cite some examples.

Take Hisomu for instance, he was given an episode to be fully introduced which highlighted his tendency for masochistic behavior and moral ambiguity. Taking into account how the series showed him in the beginning, one would assume he would be taking an antagonistic role. After all he is an outsider from the original group gathered and purposefully brought in by the project supervisors. His masochistic tendencies gives him good reason to incite discord among the group and stand as prefect example of why forming bonds with people can be dangerous. Because some people want to hurt you for their own pleasure. However then Hisomu proceeded to have no bearing on the plot at all, only bring discord when he pointed out Maki being selfish. Now in recent episodes he is doing the exact opposite of what his introduction suggested and is playing a supportive role in bringing everyone together. This truly feels like they didn’t really know what to do with him once they introduced him.

There’s also the male teacher who at first was playing the role of a supporting comic relief character before being shoved into an antagonist role and now suddenly he’s acting as Noriko’s support. Shouldn’t that role be for Noriko’s sister? His motivations just seem jarring because if his role was to help Noriko then why was he so antagonistic last episode towards the Kiznaivers? Maki, started off as someone with a dark past, spent two episodes getting her out of her shell and two episodes later they shove her right back into that shell. Niko, started as comic relief, then a foil pushing the group together, then shoved into a love triangle out of nowhere and now she’s back to comic relief? Now we have Noriko, started as a well intentioned mysterious girl, then acted as a love interest, then pushed in a victim to be saved and now she’s a full blown antagonist. If you look at all the characters they all have haphazard character arcs like this with the only consistent ones being Agata which has focused on him getting back his emotions and Chidori which has been all about getting together with Agata. This really does feel like the writer has been throwing ideas against a wall and looking to see what sticks. That’s why I wasn’t able to see where this show was going, because the show itself honestly has no idea where it’s going.

I probably went on about that too long as this should be about the episode itself. Though maybe that’s because this episode was rather uneventful. It mainly detailed about Agata thinking a lot and then just gathering everyone together to tell them to all be friends again. With lots of speeches about feelings which I find somewhat irksome. For you see most of the expression through this episode was done through dialogue and let me tell you something. For something like Books and Manga, expressing emotion through dialogue is somewhat of a necessity, however it is a fact that 55% of human communication is through body language. Anime is a visual medium and there should be no need to rely so heavily on words yet most anime forget this. They have the characters make big speeches on how they think and feel, basically articulating their emotion to the audience in painstaking detail which isn’t right. For some of the most powerful emotional moments of cinema and anime are points where the characters don’t say a word. That’s the problem here, characters are telling the audience how they are thinking and feeling when they could simply show it. As an experiment try this, in this episode it showed three characters saying out inner monologues to themselves in sequence.(Those characters being Maki, Yuta and Tenga) At that scene turn off the subtitles, turn off the sound and tell me if you really need that monologue to understand what the characters are feeling. There’s power in motion to show emotion so to disregard it and focus on conveying through words loses half the impact. I think I will leave this with one last thing, took you long enough Chidori. You selfish idiot.

~AidanAK47~

Bungou Stray Dogs – 11

by SuperMario, posted in Bungou Stray Dogs, Currently Watching:

Bungou Stray Dogs strays to another side stories this week, it’s pretty much set up for the second cour, and in that aspect this week is a success one, both gives us a new light to existing characters and makes quite a bit of impression on our new characters. I kind of appreciate how the series spends its first half on a very unusual lead: Higuchi and her insecurities both in her relationship to Akutagawa, but also her place in the Port Mafia. I mean this is Bungou Stray Dogs so I don’t really expect it to spend time focus on minor characters, yet it did. I’ve mentioned before that Higuchi in her last appearance was not well-written character, she seems more like a plot device last time who being there to trapped our main characters and waited for Akuwataga to come. But in this first half she comes off as a character who has her own worries and her own voice. Yes, being insecure is nothing special, and her heroic act is rather stupid more than inspiring, and I have my doubt that she’ll be important in the future; but for once I’m glad at the effort the show makes to flesh out our minor character. Bonus point for shedding new dimension to the Black Lizards members, who appear to be more sensible and dare I say, heart; than our own Detective Agency.

The second part spotlights the remaining member of the Armed Detective Agency, Kenji. All the facial expressions – from the chairman’s cold face, to Atsushi’s naïve reaction to Kenji’s reasons, to Kenji happy-go-lucky attitude reactions – are mostly great this week, something that the show rarely done it right before. The inclusion of Kenji, a country boy who has a very upbeat “If we’re sincere, they’ll response” attitude, further prove that the Armed Detective Agency is a bunch of weirdos who happen to (or because of) be gifted. Kenji, certainly one of the most over the top characters in Bungou Stray Dogs, smiles his way through all the incidents, and apparently solving the cases by his unique approach. This is not a bad thig though because it makes up some of the more hilarious moments in Bungou Stray Dogs. The fighting scenes for example is more comical rather than thrilling, but it fits well with the story. In other notes, I’m more intrigued to the two young female characters here, one is Hyouka who in this episode stands up for herself and asked so she could stay in the Agency (plus she’s just gorgeous in the maid outfit), I like the way she’s developing here as she takes action into her own hands. The other one is the mysterious young girl with red dress and without a single word in this episode, but she already gives off a strong impression. I suspect her to be a kick-ass girl and it’s apparent that her role in the second half will be much more significant. Speaking of this I have an impression that in the latter half it seems more likely that the Armed Detective Agency and the Port Mafia could team up to fight against Fitzgerald team, judging from the way the show focuses on the Port Mafia side this week (they’re not all that bad!) and the way it frames Dagai and Nakahara, Atsushi and Akutagawa relationships (they seems more like rivalry than actual enemy). I might be wrong of course but if it is this gonna be an interesting development for the next season.

~SuperMario~

Joker Game – 11

by AidanAK47, posted in Currently Watching:, Joker Game

Sometimes I wonder if Joker Game is intentionally trying to kill my sense of disbelief as it really does pull out some mind numbingly dumb things from time to time. Today’s “What!” moment comes right at the start of the episode when a young Yuuki escapes imprisonment by blowing up a live grenade in his hand. That’s a rather suicidal way of going about things and I am not even sure just how he managed to get away alive. We do see Yuuki swung around the pillar and apparently used it to block the explosion but I say that’s just impossible. For one that pillar looks clearly wooden and I am not even sure how it’s still standing. Even humoring this assumption, the man someone managed to block out the pain of blowing off his arm and ran out into the snow. Through some miracle he didn’t bleed out or die of hypothermia. But yes that was the protagonist of the weeks first encounter with Yuuki and it took me a while to realise that was a flashback because the protagonist happens to have a subordinate who happens to look exactly like him in the flashback. Plus he somehow gained a prominent tan over the time.

Putting that aside, it’s nice to have an antagonist now who is close to Yuuki’s level as in today’s episode he managed to figure out and plan accordingly to counter him. Naturally Yuuki was one step ahead but it still nice to see someone coming close to giving the D-agency some competition. In some ways I find him more intriguing that our actual protagonists. Another surprise this episode is that this is the first time a D-agent died. Throughout the episode I was waiting for the reveal of the agent not being dead and somehow just playing dead. But the end of the episode seems to confirm that this agent is indeed dead for good. Though I still think there’s a possibility of him somehow showing up later. Now this may sound like the thing that proves these agents are not superhuman gods which I have been asking this series to provide but it’s not quite the case. This proves that D-agents can die but it doesn’t prove that they can make a mistake. I feel like the author was trying to address the criticism of the D-Agents being too inhuman so he had one die. However he still has far too much favoritism for the D-Agents so he has him die in an unpredictable accident. Even in death a D-Agent performs his duty without error and dies with a smile. Yes, this felt like the author was trying to have his cake and eat it too to which I give a dejected sigh.

The episode was mainly about the new antagonist trying to uncover a D-Agency spy from a trainwreck while all his subordinates are busy telling him there are no spies. In another show those subordinates would have a point as it is unrealistic for a spy to cover his tracks this much. Leaves aspirin on the floor, clearly planned. Doesn’t bother to dust the inside of drawers, clearly planned. In any other show you would just brush off the colonel as just being overly paranoid. Most of his supposition is based more on a hunch and feeling that this man is related to Yuuki. It’s good to have someone who can also peek at the script but lastly he isn’t in D-Agency and if you aren’t a D-agent then you don’t win. Yuuki manages to get away with a microfilm detailing all the spies within D-agency, which makes me wonder why he even had such a thing in the first place. I wouldn’t be surprised if Yuuki got them to commit it to memory. as opposed to having physical evidence. Not sure why he would even give such a thing to an agent in the first place. Either way the end of this episode is the same as all previous, D-agents win and leave the opponent to revel in awe of their majesty. Taking into account Japan’s position during WWII, I wonder if the D-Agents would make better villains than heroes?

~AidanAK47~

Kabaneri of the Iron Fortress – 08/09

by HelghastKillzone, posted in Currently Watching:, Koutetsujou no Kabaneri

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What do you mean this episode writeup is weeks late? What you mean that I have to combine them?

Screw it, we doing live.

The plot thicken as Koutetsujou no Kabaneri continues to barrel on through with but the new additions to the story are a sign that its hype engine is starting to overheat and catch fire. Featuring mortars, steam-powered motorcycles, night vision headgear, and a handheld gatling gun, Biba’s Hunters reminded me of the Equalists from Avatar: The Legend of Korra but with a far more menacing look and firepower that doesn’t disappoint. Equally impressive was the tactics that they employed which offered greater mobility and flexibility compared to the static firing lines of the Bushies guardsmen. Even the new addition of the new Kabaneri, Horobi, offers a new fighting style that focuses on adding to the gymnastics of Memui as opposed to the brute force of Ikoma.

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While the action has remained good with tons of Kabanes and human being killed left, right and center, the tone surrounding all the flashy moves has been changed to being more gratuitous

and lacks the buildup for it to be effective. Having Horobi go from being Biba’s lover to a Kurokeburi doing a rendition of Attack on Titan to an Alex Mercer copycat (Prototype) spewing a lazer cone of death had me experiencing a bit of whiplash and apathy for the sudden escalation of everything while sacrificing story quality and character development. This problem can also be attributed to background music as it goes for the dramatic and dark choirs and drums as I find myself missing the cheesy insert songs that flowed so much better in the previous action sequences.

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The biggest shift tone and direction in Kabaneri can be placed on the shoulders in the arrival of the main antagonist, Biba-sama. Teased and hinted throughout the series, his presence throws supercharges the narrative to outlandish proportions with his experimental technology and superweapons. As a character, he has some nice quirks like being mechanically inclined like Ikoma and also dashingly handsome but the twisted ideals forged by a past that is filled with betrayal by his own government are the dark edgy cliches that I expect from an mediocre anime. On the surface, his future without fear seems to have many things in common with Ikoma. As his hostile takeover and massacre of the current station shows, his vision involves wiping out the Shogun authority and creating a new order with his freak experiments unlike Ikoma’s ideals of cooperation and a brighter future. He certainly reminds me of Gai Tsutsugami of ill-fated Guilty Crown where the seemingly good guy is turned in the big baddie that everyone else has to take down although Kabanari is in a better position to be the superior product.

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For a twelve year old Kabane killing machine caught between her loyalties of her newfound companions and personal savior of Biba-sama, Memui acts quite predictable in this clash of opposing ideals. Going from her carefree attitude to being an easily manipulated tool of Biba isn’t a bad way to interject some character development and drama but the compressed season format isn’t the right fit to do so given all the other wacky shit that been going on in the past two episodes. I’m willing to give a pass on the erratic behavior from Memui provides she sees the errors of her ways and goes back to kicking ass alongside with Ikoma. Judging by her actions which directly resulted in another station being overrun by the Kabane and becoming a victim for Biba’s sickening experiments, she is definitely having second thoughts about aligning herself with Team Biba.

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In Ikoma’s case, he has gone completely from seizing the initiative to merely reacting to the ever encroaching influence and power of Biba-sama. It a little sad see a character who is able to mygver his way out of situations with his piercing steam gun and be the unifying force for the Hayajiro be reduced to repeating the same few lines begging to Memui and fighting with his back against the wall.

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From the onset of the series, I made a prediction that Koutetsujou no Kabaneri would lie somewhere between the megahit Attack on Titan and the disappointing dumpster fire of Guilty Crown given that both shows. These past two episodes have taken a markedly different tone than the rest of the series which has me leaning towards the latter rather than the former. However, unlike my fellow blog writers who have declared that the Kabaneri Hype train was going to turned into a literal train wreck from the very beginning, I have hope that it will right itself and deliver an epic finale. My outlook isn’t based on blind optimism but rather that I can still see a path where Kabaneri of the Iron Fortress could redeem itself. By having all our protagonists team up and take down Biba-sama in the fun loving way that defined the first half of the series while hopefully patching up its storyline. In contrast, Guilty Crown was way past the point of no return by the time it reached the latter half of its runtime.

But seriously, the amount of Kabane lazers needs to be toned down.

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Flying witch – 10

by SuperMario, posted in Currently Watching:, Flying Witch

Once again, Flying witch excels this week. Nao steps up and become a spotlight this week, and girl was she a joy to watch! I bet many of us have experienced this cooking trouble before, and both her frustrate before the cooking class (“Nao is closed for the day”), her reason why she’s so scare to cook (mistaken vinegar for oil), and her worked-up attitude when making a hamburger, are all whimsical and speaks a lot to her character. This part stands out for me as one of the most solid sequence of Flying witch so far, shines both in its theme and in its execution. While the running joke of this part is how clumsy and awkward Nao is when it comes to cooking, it carries a much more resonant message: that despite her bad at cooking, Nao tries and eventually enjoy the whole process. The execution, true to Flying witch style, the cooking part is as realistic and down to earth as possible, without any over the top cooking moment or showing the delicious food they made. There are many standout moments like when Nao tried to cut the onions, the poor girl doesn’t even know the ingredient to make a hamburger, she cries when chop down the onion or the very moment when she cuts it, all were well timed and endearing. The bit where Nao patting the meat, getting more confident just so that it slipped and dropped to the table, then her deadpan expression: “This for you, Kei” – is just so natural and charming and basically I can’t get enough of it. The jokes on witch’s pink finger and the punch at the end are all very solid as well.

In the second part, we move from classroom to the countryside as the cast goes there to thin the apple trees. I don’t particularly enjoy this part than the first one, but there are still many nice moments out there, in particular, I enjoy the bit where Chinatsu’s dad tried to explain how to thin the trees with his thick accent, just so that Kei came up to re-explain with the exact same way (or maybe this due to the translation here), or when Akane behave exactly like herself to laugh at her sister for bumping to the trees, just so that she got it harder. The whole chemistry between the cast is just so natural and easy-going here, from a good conversation from Chinatsu to Akame, or Makoto with the local people. The cats in Flying witch sure take it easy days by days, either they lying down, sleeping, eating or just wandering around. The bees sequence is as understated as your typical Flying witch goes, but those moments creates such a strong atmosphere and once again I’m having one of the best 25 minutes to run away to.

~SuperMario~

Mayoiga – 11

by SuperMario, posted in Currently Watching:, Mayoiga

With the ending where every crazy idea has to wrap up and come to an end, it’s no surprising that Mayoiga has a lesser amount of goofy scenes and ridiculous characters compare to their previous episodes. But this is still pretty much a Mayoiga episode. I must tip my hat off for the creator of this series for making the whole thing ridiculous and unpredictable till the very end here. There are some interesting revelations this week, and I’m intrigued to see how the last 2 episodes can make use of that. First, for the first time in the series, there is an actual scene where the show goes for real emotion, aka the bus driver and his daughter. In that particular moment, things don’t go ridiculously, but actually very tender and honest. This seems really out of place with the tone that Mayoiga keep building for 10 episodes, but then again out of place is what Mayoiga known for. We also get another revelation about the nature of Nanaki, apparently some of them can be visible to other people and can talk because of… What? I honestly still don’t get it. So the Nanami can talk after people accept his/her own Nanami, but it doesn’t seem like the case with Masaki, and isn’t they going back to their real life? Duh. We also learn that Koharun had some kind of traumatic experience in the past, that’s why she can’t trust people she used to trust and tried to power up the Nanami. This is an interesting development and I can see her circumstances parallel with Masaki’s here. While it is revealed that Reiji is Masaki’s Nanami, it comes down to both Reiji and the person Koharun trusted were the people both girls care the most, and they lose it. Koharun for me is the wiser, more mature version of Masako, and might be represent what Masaki would have been if Mitsumune failed to help Masaki facing her Nanami.

But then, attempted to dig deeper in Mayoiga seems like a waste of time, as I can safely say that Mayoiga does not try to provide any deeper meaning behind its premise.  Not everything that add up in Mayoiga, like I still don’t know why introducing a “God” character, so late in the game here. It’s not like he could change anything. And the ridiculous gags keep popping up with so deadpan delivery that for me is purely gold. My favorite gags this week is how the bus driver keep appearing/ vanish like a badly-written ghosts (remember how he suddenly disappeared last couple episodes ago, made us feel like has was consumed by the monsters, to he reappeared this episode, safe and sound, and the vanished again at the end of this episode); or how a bunch of characters that the characters seems like get tired of them, so they literally put the cast to sleep. Their reactions to the ambush is so hilarious that made Mayoiga such a pleasant to watch. One of my favorite whimsical moments would be when God explains that he has tried to stop people coming to the lost village for years, and unfortunately on the day that the bus arrived, he fallen asleep. Typically, Mayoiga! Looking ahead, we have the big bad Nanami that Koharun had raised and Mitsumune team going to rescue our princess Nasaki. Things look brighter ahead and I expect things will blow up in the last 2 episodes.

~SuperMario~

Re:Zero -Starting Life in Another World – 11

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

A flashback before a arc finale certainly isn’t a new prospect but I at least can forgive it if the info provided is good. With this we learn of Rem and Ram’s past and with it comes a number of answers. My previous theory turned out to be off the mark but I am actually happy about that. So it seems from birth Ram had a massive affinity for demonic power, to a degree that she could accomplish practically anything with it. Everyone compared Rem to her sister and she felt inferior to her in everyway. Thus she has always pushed herself to do her best, not because she wishes to best her sister but rather because she wishes to punish herself for being happy that Ram lost her horn the moment it happened. Rem has been holding on to a massive inferiority complex this whole time which is rather strange when you consider that Ram is more likely candidate to feel inferior. It has already been established that Rem is better than Ram in practically every way. She’s, more hardworking, earnest, stronger and generally more proficient in every area. Subaru even points out that she beats her in the chest area as well. Yet Rem always measures herself up to who her sister used to be and always feels she falls short. Seems the ones that cut off Ram’s horn is a witches cult, sporting the ku klux klan hoods as well which cultists seem quite fond of. Some are theorizing that Roswell is the one who cut off Ram’s horn but this seems based on the fact that one scene shows a man cradling Ram who looks to be wearing Roswell’s attire. Looking over the scene, it’s clear that the one who cut off Ram’s horn was wearing different clothes than the person who was holding Ram in his arms. Roswell looks to have saved the two from the attack and then took them on as his personal maids. Part of this could be because of his eccentric mannerisms, his objective or what looks like Ram’s need to be supplied mana directly to her torn off horn.

The finale of this arc is Subaru’s battle against the Ma-beasts which does turn out to be him holding them off until someone who can take care of them comes along. I really like that Subaru is never the one who truly defeats the villains, rather he makes use of his limited skillset to buy time for someone who can. Ultimately Subaru gets off alive and looks to have won the heart of Rem. I am not too fond of the harem aspects of this series but I would be lying if I said I wasn’t moved by Rem’s smile. This episode looks to have won Rem a large fanbase and I even admit that when I see Subaru go back to trying to win Emilia’s heart I somewhat wish he would go after Rem instead. Maybe because I was never too fond of Emilia to begin with or maybe because I think Rem and Subaru make for a better couple but regardless you can consider a Rem fan from this point forward. Well more a Rem/Ram fan because what can I say? I am greedy. What I find most interesting from this point on is that Rem looks to be quite smitten with Subaru now and if she starts making moves to get closer to him, I could see problems arise. For let us not forget,(No matter how easy it is too forget) Rem did kill Subaru quite brutally in another loop. Rem may not remember this but Subaru certainly does and I doubt he’s pushed this out of his psyche quite so easily. But let’s not let that cloud this episode because this was a nice heartwarming victory. We do have some loose threads, namely that one of the children Subaru recused has mysteriously disappeared and that the Ma-Beasts were controlled by someone. My bets on the blue haired little girl. Roswell also mentioned that his goal is to kill the Dragon connected to the royal family which could out him as a villain but I am willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. Something tells me this dragon isn’t quite as benevolent as he’s described to be.

We have two arcs done and I am quite satisfied with how Re:Zero has turned out. If this was the end of the series then I would certainly rate it highly and put it in my best of the year. But we haven’t even reached the halfway point and have a whole fourteen or so episodes to go and a brand new arc starting. The sceptic in me says that plenty of series have fallen down in the second half but I want to hope with this. For one White Fox is promising they are bringing their best with this and based on the quality so far that’s certainly exciting. Even the author is hyping up the next arc having more Subaru suffering. I have even heard that the third arc of the series is has the worst sales, not by being bad but rather because readers couldn’t handle the level of suffering Subaru was experiencing. Seeing as I happen to be the soulless monster that I am, I take my potato chips and eat them in glee at the prospect. Who knows, maybe his suffering will become too great even for me to watch on. I actually have a high level of confidence on the quality of this series continuing but I am concerned about how it will conclude. Perhaps this new arc will give the series a main goal it has been missing since the start but considering the amount of material left to adapt I wonder whether it will provide a good conclusion which leaves room for a potential sequel. While there are a total of eight light novels, those light novels are adaptations of a web novel which is much further on.  Basic on rough estimate and machine translation there are a total so far of 6 arcs with the sixth currently still being written. However future arcs are much longer than our current one. Web novel wise the second arc which we just finished is 50 chapters long. The next arc is 84 chapters long with the fourth arc after that being a massive 130 chapters long. Given White Fox’s number of sequels made i have doubts we will even make it to the fourth arc. (White fox has made a total of two sequels. One a movie for steins gate, another a second season of Jormungand.) Unless this turns out to be a real hit I think we will need to rely on translators to see the conclusion to this story.

~AidanAK47~

Kiznaiver – 10

by AidanAK47, posted in Currently Watching:, Kiznaiver

Upon reading reactions to this episode I have come to the conclusion that my consensus on this episode is likely not a popular one. After all this episode was aiming for the “feels” and those who don’t get the “feels” don’t quite hold the same opinion as those who do. As I have said before, this kind of drama is hit or miss. If it hits then it hits hard and lets you forgive any missteps it took to achieve the emotional payout. But if it misses then you are left to question the threads that lead to this conclusion which to me doesn’t bode well. I equate it to a poorly written but well executed twist. Upon seeing it you might be applauding it but then you sit down and think about it only to find in retrospect that it doesn’t really make any sense. This episode didn’t blow me away but it certainly did make me question the quality of writing. For when Space Patrol Luluco provides a better emotional gut punch than the series actively aiming for one, I really need to reassess its quality. I admit that I am enjoying Space Patrol Luluco a lot more than Kiznaiver right now. Maybe perhaps because it still knows how to have fun when Kiznaiver is weeding out all the fun it has in favor of love pentagram and drama. What makes it most amusing is that Luluco is dealing with almost the exact same problem the Kiznaiver group is dealing with, namely a broken heart, yet she has broken out of her stupor when most of the Kiznaiver group continues to wallow in it. A fourteen year old girl is more emotionally mature than a bunch of teenagers. I suppose when you think about it this isn’t really that much of a surprise. But let us push Luluco to the side for a moment and let me try to articulate just why this episode’s emotional drama didn’t resonate with me.

Sadly, just as predicted, the entire Kiznaiver group basically angst the summer away. The first offender of this episode is the teacher who starts the episode by being pointlessly antagonistic. I don’t even get his reason for doing this, the group isn’t Kiznaivers anymore so he has nothing to gain by riling them up like this. But the big part that really annoyed me is how he tripped Tenga, giving him a bloody nose. Ladies and gentlemen, do you have any idea what this would mean for a teacher? They would be fired within a week. These days a teacher can’t so much as cough in a student’s direction without being blamed for abusing his position. Sure the school seems to be connected to the Kiznaiver project but I certainly think they would have a hard time quieting down the angry parents. Even disregarding this, just why is he doing this? Simple, because the show wants you to hate this character, so they will have them act as ignorant as possible to achieve that. The second offender is when Nico, Agata and Hayato make a trip to the secret lab under the school and are found by Mutsumi. Who proceeds to sit them down and outright spout exposition at them. This is lazy exposition of the highest caliber not only is it lazy but the majority of it is information which has already been confirmed. There was an experiment involving children that went wrong, Noriko and Agata were part of it, it’s the reason why Agata lost his emotions and all of this is information we already know. The only thing we learn is what went wrong with the experiment and that is because Noriko was accidently linked up with the pain of all fourteen children which caused her immense agony. She was then drugged in order to dull her senses to give her relief which lead to her detached and kuudere personality. As Agata wails over the pain and suffering Noriko had to experience I was busy thinking to myself. Just how goddamn incompetent did these scientists have to be to cock up this badly. Truly I am flabbergasted at just how they managed to accomplish a failure of this magnitude.

Despite Mutsumi sitting our characters down and throwing exposition at them, she keeps fairly vague about the actual process of making Kiznaivers. However based on what we seen so far we can assume that making Kiznavers involves embedding some kind of device in the subjects. After all it can project holograms and seems to require some minor surgery. So i ask this, isn’t there so method to disable it? It’s clearly wireless and they can use it to monitor a subject’s emotional wavelength. Why is it that drugs were the only method of preventing Noriko from suffering? Why couldn’t they just perform surgery and undo the process? Are you telling me that these idiots performed surgery on ninteen children, after countless animal and human tests, and had no backout plan? Look if you are just going to sit down and shove exposition down our throats then address all questions. Why are you describing transferring pain like it’s cutting up an orange and handing people parts? Pain is a signal and if you can transfer and split that signal then you bet your ass you can disable or even redirect that signal. Why the hell are you hooking up fourteen kids to “Lessen” the pain? The pain should be the same for all of them regardless of how many you hook up. Nor can you somehow drain emotions from people either and turn them catatonic. If you can intercept the signal then you can negate it. You say that a kid presses her foot on the ground and that impact is multiplied by fourteen and transferred to Noriko? How does that even happen? Is the signal passed through the kids one by one and hits Noriko last? But by the diagram you make it that the signals hit Noriko all at once so there’s no point were the pain would multiply per say. She should be feeling individual impacts from each child. Not one impact times 14. This makes no sense. You can say they could be good reasons for all this, but those good reasons were not presented here. When it comes to something like this you either put in the work to explain it or you just don’t draw attention to it. You don’t half ass it for the sake of throwing out a cheap emotional climax. At this point Kiznaivers have no scientific grounds whatsoever so it’s essentially magic. You should have taken the route of Erased, which simply didn’t bother to draw attention to it’s time travel aspect and simply used it as a plot device.

My last problem deals with just how they people are dealing with the fallout from last episode. Surprisingly Nico and Tenga are going about things in the right way by trying to bury the hatchet and move past the fight to become friends again. I appreciate this. I just wish that Maki and Chidori wouldn’t be such selfish killjoys because apparently no one can understand their pain so they won’t even try to move past this. Chidori is the primary offender in this case as when Tenga went up to her asking for her to reject him so that he could push himself past this and move on. But Chidori couldn’t even give him that much. Instead she made it all about herself, asking how this would make her feel better. Sure you could write this as her being used by Tenga for Tenga to feel better about himself but honestly that’s just a selfish perspective. Chidori, you asked what would make you feel better, well Tenga is showing you how. Confront the person you love and make them give you a clear answer. But you won’t do that, because you can’t take being rejected and want to just stand there complaining about how you can’t understand people’s feelings. Get over yourself. A large amount of the aspects I originally liked this series for the character chemistry and comedy it had in the beginning but as of now those aspects are barely present. Their a mild bit of comedy as Agata tries to find Noriko by peeking at girls panties under the staircase, as he knows she wears polka dots.The character chemistry was only present here with Hayato, Nico and Agata which was a nice reminder of what this series used to have. I have heard that this series was originally intended to be a school battle anime and I wonder just how that would have turned out. Sure it may not have been original but I think it would be fun and that is Triggers real strength. Anime school life dramas are a dime a dozen, a insane fun Trigger anime is a much higher rarity.

~AidanAK47~

Bungou Stray Dogs – 10

by SuperMario, posted in Bungou Stray Dogs, Currently Watching:

Last week I mentioned the lack of consistency in characters, despite the more focus and confident pacing of Bungou Stray Dogs. Well this we pretty much have the same issues here. The first part focus on Dazai and Nakahara and reveals a bit more about his past while he was in Port Mafia. While Akutagawa is short-tempered and easily offended by Dazai’s words, Nakahara seems wiser and understands Dazai better, which is not to say that he is not manipulated by the always-several-steps-ahead Dazai. I still can’t put my finger on the way Nakahara behave, because his behaviors don’t add up much. Let’s say he came to the place to harass Dazai (which in the end turns out that Dazai was expecting it), he then broke out the chains, fight with our main character, intended to kill him, but then was “blackmailed” so he would give Dazai information, frees the guy and “walks and talks like little rich girl”. The character of Nakahara has absolutely no consistency here. I understand that he held Dazai in high regards, being his former partner and Nakahara understands the guy more than anyone else in Port Mafia. I would understand why he like to harass Dazai but go as far as killing him? Nah. I don’t believe it one bit (although tips off for nice visual), so there was no stake to raise here, indeed he couldn’t bring himself to kill Dazai which brings me to a next point: Why include that scene in a first place? It just seems like it was included to further demonstrate how awesome Dazai is. Everything falls into his plan (including how he was kidnapped in a first place). This, and the very awkward “walking and talking like a girl” bit, the show surely overplayed the superhuman, almost perfect Dazai and make every actions made by Nakahara incoherent.

The second part, though, is as entertainment as Bungou Stray Dogs can get. But still I don’t see the point of Kunikida’s rescue here. How the hell would he thinks that yelling out Atsushi name (so all the people in the ship would hear) the best possible action? And he basically helps nothing except being there for Atsushi to jump as well? So why include him again? Well anyway, the fight between Akutagawa and our main character is great, and it’s really great to see Atsushi can perform his gifts at will and gets better and better at fighting. There are many nice visual in a fighting sequences and the choreography is excellent as well. All that and the reveals of a bigger, more bad-ass boss (F. Scott Fitzgerald, can you believe that?) made a nice touch to the series (I would never think they include writers outside of Japan) and set up nicely to the conflict of second season of the series. Anyway, I like to see more on the conflict between Port Mafia and the Agency so here’s hoping the last few episodes can deliver on that.

~SuperMario~

Odin Sphere Leifthrasir Game Review – 87/100

by K-Off, posted in Anime Reviews, Game Reviews

Oh my. This game was just utterly, utterly incredible when it came out, so despite disliking the usual remasters (ahem, Valkyria Chronicles), I was pretty stoked when I learned I’d be able to play this again on better hardware. It came out really late into the PS2’s lifetime in 2007, so at the time, I like a lot of others thought it should’ve been on the Playstation 3, as Tales of Vesperia had also been transferred to the PS3 despite being developed for the PS2 – and two console generations later, here we are with Leifthrasir.

In case you don’t know what Odin Sphere is about, it’s simply a 2D fairytale action JRPG that puts you into the shoes of 5 characters in individual stories each with their own background and self interest, with nods to well-known fairy tales. We start off with Gwendolyn in the first book, during the great battle against the Ringford Army, when her sister is killed and she herself is defeated but spared by Oswald, the shadow knight. As we move on from her story, through Cornelius, Mercedes, Oswald, and Velvet’s, we see these individual stories slowly come together by the sixth book to create an interesting spin on the “party members banding together to save the world” RPG trope. Here, some main characters are even enemies with each other, and not in the Tales sense where they’re mysteriously hostile at first, only to turn out to being the good guys (ahem, Sheena). No, some straight up try to murder each other out of self-interest no matter how good their intentions are, and I love it because it shows a gray morality usually handled black & white in other fantasy JRPGs. There’s a reason why some aggressive kingdoms act the way they do, and while it’s certainly not insightful or original for that matter, it’s a breath of fresh air. As a result, the climax is very well done, and the ending is just as explosive and does an excellent job of laying the story to rest (so long as you get the seventh book) since characters undergo tangible conflicts. Individually, each story by themselves are pretty standard fairy-tales. However, what made Odin Sphere’s plot just that fun to play through is how interconnected each story is and the subterfuge that goes on back and forth between the main characters, even if it isn’t on a very deep level.

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