Kiznaiver – 09

by AidanAK47, posted in Currently Watching:, Kiznaiver

This episode happened to confirm one of my biggest worries about this series from the very start. With the advent of the love triangle I was cautious that the melodrama would escalate into a shouting match. Thus here it is, rain, shouting match and a big fallout because no one likes the person who likes them back. The comedy? Whatever scraps of plot? Thrown to the sidelines to deal with excessive melodrama between the characters. It’s rather disappointing honestly as that’s not what wanted from this series. What I wished for was more a better executed Kokoro Connect but now it looks to be falling into the same pitfalls that did. Basically what this episode is the fall before the climax. Where our heroes are brought to their lowest point so as to rise past it. However while their are part of this episode presented sell, this development doesn’t feel earned. It doesn’t feel like previous episodes were building to this point but rather a revelation that they just spent the past 8 episodes messing about and now that the end is near they need a climax. An example of this is that in the previous arc we spent two episodes developing Maki to accept the Kiznaivers and at the end of this episode at the first sight of trouble she regresses right back to how she was. I get what this episode is aiming for and that’s the message that remaining so close to someone who can see and read you like an open book is difficult as no one can truly like having no privacy with their thoughts. But if this is the case then shouldn’t the past episodes been used to strengthen the bonds between the group. On conversation it felt like the plot was more focused on setting up couples than improving friendships. As Nico recalls that all they had accomplished together I find it’s surprisingly little. Considering the dramatic fallout we have here, this truly doesn’t feel deserved.

The question at the end of the episode remains the same as it was from the beginning. What now? I hope we won’t be spending the next episode with all our characters busy moping and angsting over love. I don’t want to spend an episode waiting for someone to step up to snap everyone out of their funk. I have long since gotten tired of seeing anime characters wallow in self pity when simply talking things out is far more productive. Sure you can argue it’s realistic but it’s not enjoyable and this series doesn’t have the episode count to indulge such fruitless time wasting.I never cared for Chidori’s little crush because I never saw it as being remotely achievable and Nico’s feelings even less so. If this is the story from now on then I would have preferred that the animation budget that went into this would have been transferred to Space Patrol Luluco as it at least presents something that I can’t find in a dozen other anime series. I am 27 years old and I have long lost the romance for these shy first loves with no progress so I say to those with achievable love, quit the beating around the bush, put yourself out there and get together. To those desiring a love damned from the start, cut your losses and settle for something within your reach. Sure it’s not a romantic notion but damn it, it’s practical. Besides you are a teenger and your first love is hardly going to be your only chance at it.

It looks as though the previous Kiznaiver experiment failed when some event caused all the kids to be crippled with emotional pain which looks to have been caused by Noriko. This very same thing looks to have happened to the gang here though the cause is more our chain of unfulfilled loves. The indirect cause might be the same though as this time was more or less orchestrated by the school teacher who is pushing for more results regardless of the cost. This certainly didn’t really help as I see it as the same results as before where negative emotions are being transferred easier than positive ones. In this case it wasn’t so much the voices of their hearts that was transferred but rather their deepest most selfish desire. Otherwise Nico’s desires to keep the group remaining as friends would have come across as well as her desire for Tenga. I do like the contrast as she spoke of her selfless desire while her true selfish desires interrupted her. I love the deep red and static effect as the characters inner voices are heard. I do think that this episode is for the most part presented well but as stated before, I don’t feel this fallout was built upon properly. It feels hasty and flimsy so while I can appreciate the direction of this episode, I cannot approve of the shoddy foreshadowing.

~AidanAK47~

Mayoiga – 10

by SuperMario, posted in Currently Watching:, Mayoiga

It is a feast to see a show that still remains very unpredictable till its very end. Yes, this episode put the silliness to the max and I prefer it this way. Now to think about it I think this might be one of the best way to approach Mayoiga. They consistency screw up our expectation, twist any ordinary convention by making things as insane and as little sense as possible. So kudos to Tsutomu Mizushima for remain really consistent for composing things inconsistently.

Because for me, the fun of watching Mayoiga is to experience the ridiculousness of the episode, and this week it’s choke full of absurd and nonsense sequences that  today instead of reviewing the episode, I will rank them in order of RIDICULOSNESS:

Mayoiga 10-10Mayoiga 10-9

For number 10, we have our Yotsun back (which makes the total body count a big ZERO). This is a good introduction phase to our GOD, which later we found out that “a long time” means 3 years ago.

For number 9, we learn that Mitsumune indeed returns back to the real world. We witness one of the most bizarre parental guidance (“You can leave home and come back any time”), and even a more chilling confession above. It’s a shame because after nearly 10 years of imposing his dead brothers, Mom just decided to not getting better. And what they mean by getting better? Accept Mitsumune as Tokimune? Yuck.

Mayoiga 10-8Mayoiga 10-7

At number 8 and 7, we have two out of nowhere backstory mean to freshen out Yotsun and Lion, respectively, which at the end we learn nothing new from each of them. Who are the people with those cello? His parents? Over the rap career? Lion said nobody believe her but she did build quite a strong following so I’m just not sure what she complaining. Also her gift is quite vague: she can see dead people? She can see the people who about to die? She can see people that might not die? Oh god. This adds up to nothing, which also means Mayoiga at its best.

Continue reading “Mayoiga – 10” →

Bungou Stray Dogs – 09

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

I have a strong mixed feeling towards this week’s episode of Bungou Stray Dogs. While structurally, this presents Bungou Stray Dogs at its best, it has a major flaw, A FATAL BLOW, that could potentially damage the show. The show establishes its most confident pacing ever, by slowing things down on the first half to really focus on the relationship between Atsushi and the new girl, Kyouka. This provides a great break after we had so many explosions and fighting the last couple of weeks. This is a time for a slower, tender moment to flesh out our characters and heighten their relationship. It helps that Kyouka is among one of the best characters the show ever written, the way she’s grounded: she’s well aware of her loneliness and her crimes, yet she strives for someone who could understand her. The art designs, in addition, bright with so much creativity this week. The use of strong color: dark red, green, resembles many of classical painting, but to put them in a modern context – especially this week when they showcase the various attractions of Yokohama – makes it a unique production. This art designs feel like an essential component of Bungou Stray Dogs. I have never seen any other shows that Yumiko Kondo (the art director) contribute apart from this one, but she surely has my full attention now. The music remains strong this week, with a rather unusual choice again, but surprising fitting, in a sequences where Atsushi get attacked by the Port Mafia. Rather than using the thrilling score, in that particular scene the show goes for a much slower, tender score to express the lost feeling of Kyouka. The second half of this episode the show rushes thing off into its action mode and this would be our main climax of the whole first season, especially will be a big fight off between our main lead Atsushi and Akutagawa, both of them connected to Dagai as their upperclassman.

But there is one issue that the show unfortunately stumbles on, and I do think this is a serious issue, that is the inconsistency of the characters. This inconsistency had happened before in Bungou Stray Dogs, in an episode where Dagai, Atsushi and Kunikida witnessed several victims were gassed in an abandon hospital. Now with Kunikida’s personality, a rather self-righteous man who lives by his “ideal”, there is no way he’s not shooting the glass down, regardless if the glass is bulletproof or the gas will spread out. He would not even think about it, just shoot it. Again in this episode, the huge leap of personality happens when the Agency was informed that Atsushi has been abducted, and guess what Kunikida’s acting? He’s babbling about the Agency’s current “important” ministry job, which is strange because in this very morning he still has time to go out for lunch, and worse of all he and Ranpo actually look for reasons no to help Atsushi out. I know that the show has downplayed this part and it seems like this part is a vehicle for the President to involve and shows that the President cares for our rookie member, but the show could do that better without selling out any other characters. Consider Kunikida behaving at that moment with him in the end of the episode where he rushing out to rescue our main lead, this feel almost like a betrayal. Dagai being kidnapped and others don’t seem to care at all strikes as another inconsistency for me, I know he would take good care of himself without any help but I really feel like the cast just don’t care because the show don’t want them too, because it would help to move the story faster or some other rubbish. Another glaring example is when Kunikida raising an unnecessary stake with a remark “Once he’s outside of the country, we can’t touch him”. How the heck outside of the country impossible for them to rescue Atsushi? This is an Armed Detective Agency with gifted people for god shake, and I don’t understand why only him and not the whole Agency going to rescue him? It’s simply just because the show don’t want them too. I can get pass their shaky pacing because as of now it’s kinda Bungou Stray Dogs thingy, but if the characters keep acting so inconsistent like this, I would mark the show down rather harshly.

~SuperMario~

Kabaneri of the Iron Fortress – 07

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

3

Can the best show of the season to continue be even more epic than a giant Kabane chasing after a train armed with a tank cannon?

Get ready to be disappointed because the Kabaneri hype train stops for a shopping trip in this episode.

After six episode of running away from Kabane and fighting off enemies on a speeding train, it is inevitable that Kabaneri of the Iron Fortress would give its cast a chance to wind down and let loose before the next leg of their journey. The show does a good job of balancing out its supporting characters by giving them meaningful screen-time alongside our main characters. Between Memui’s first shopping experience with the ladies of the Hayajiro, the bromance of Ikoma and Takumi sticking it to the Bushi and the constant shipping between Ayame-sama/Kurusu, there is plenty of lighthearted humor to go around.

The Tanabata was a good excuse for all the ladies to dress in Yukata clothing.

It’s not all fun and games in the station as the cold and hard reality of the Kabane infection rears its ugly head in a couple of place even though not one of the those glowing zombies shows up. As the encounter shows with the Hayajiro conductors and the boy, whose father was sent flying into the station as a Kabane, there is no place for sugarcoating the bitter truth. However, the latter half of the episode, while it acknowledges that the world is a hellish unforgiving place, pushes a narrative that is hopeful and looks forwards. Just look at Memui’s cynical views on her own dual nature and Ikoma’s rebuttal of his goal of reversing the Kabane side of her.

It’s more than just mere survival.

It’s about going past that and dreaming about a bright future. While Memui’s wish for a belly full of rice is laughably simple and Takumi ‘s appetite for three hot beautiful wives, it all points to a place where the Kabane simply doesn’t exist anymore.

4

With Memui’s brother/Hunters coming into town, it sets up the main conflict for the latter half of the show with its attention turning towards other human factions having ulterior motives and setting their plans into motion. Afterall, he is the one who turned little Memui into a Kabane killing machine and the foreshadowing of a sinister plot is bound to have the squishy humans turn their weapons on each other.Even though the action is missing from a show that is all about killing Kabane in the most brutal and spectacular way possible, Studio Wit still manages to deliver a less hectic episode that can stand on its own through its characters interaction and cheesy music while pushing the story ever so slightly.

5

Joker Game -09

by AidanAK47, posted in Currently Watching:, Joker Game

I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised at this outcome, after all the idea that this story would let anyone outshine the D agency for long is rather foolish when you consider everything so far. Wind agency certainly didn’t last long and you could foretell their fate right at the start of the episode. I certainly did as I noticed that while Wind agency was moving in for the kill, not a hide or hair was seen of D agency. For a show that puts them on so high a pedestal that that you could call it a tower of babel that is certainly very odd. I had firm suspicions of the houseboy and old man that appeared in this episode and I turned out to be completely right. To me this episode symbolises everything that’s wrong with Joker Game, in that it loves its protagonists far too much. D agency is  can do no wrong and is always smarter, stronger and better than everyone else. D agency is perfect and isn’t that just dreadfully boring? With Sakamoto desu ga the premise of someone being perfect at everything is a joke and that joke works because it turns that joke up to a thousand. But here we have prefect superhumans played straight and it expects us to root for them. I expects us to be interested in a battle were the outcome has already been decided. There is no tension nor suspense, just the inevitable victory of D agency.

With the introduction of wind agency I was hoping for the D agents to finally face conflict. Something to challenge them and reveal that despite their master over a particular set of skills, they are still human. But instead we had an episode trying to put Wind agency as a potential threat, only to have them get completely demolished in the very next episode. They were never a threat to begin with, everything was according to the keikaku. I am glad to see Yuuki again because he’s pretty much the only D agency member I can recognise but his berating of the wind agency captain for even attempting to top D agency was just self congratulatory to the point of being sickening. I found the wind agency’s methods to be truer to that of a real spy and having Yuuki berate them as wannabes just makes me angry. Killing is the worst mistake a spy can make because it compromises your identity when an investigation is started to look into the death? Hogwash. Revealing your face and identity to people is far more compromising and the D agents certainly make themselves look as suspicious as possible. To add insult to injury, the boss of Wind agency is so shamed by Yuuki that he ends up killing himself and that’s irritating. I actually want to start cheering for the bad guys now as it would be satisfying to see someone take D agency off their high horses.

Half of this episode was dedicated to Yuuki schooling the Wind agency captain on how he screwed up his mission. While he did indeed make grievous errors, I think Yuuki was being a bit too smug for his own good. After all part of your plan to inform Shirahata was apparently to get an attendant to ring him to say his houseboy was goaded into getting drunk which apparently is a massive red flag for him. Not sure why that’s a red flag, was the identity they made for him that he wasn’t a drinker. Then it would make sense but still it’s a lot of faith to pack up and leave because of a phone call which could very well be a misunderstanding. I am certainly regretting picking this up to blog as much like Gangsta it feels like a great idea was wasted because it wanted to appeal to a general demographic. Not that my second choice to blog Mayoiga faired any better but at least that is entertainingly bad. This show however is just competent and boring at this point. I am tired of seeing D agency win no matter what nonsensical method the author comes up with to let them do so. Conflict is entertaining when both combatants are on even terms. A one sided slaughter is no fun for anyone watching.  The animation is nice and the music is quite stylish but the plot leaves much to be desired.

~AidanAK47~

Chinese Animation Guide – Part 4: Chinese Traditional Animated shows

by SuperMario, posted in Anime Reviews, Reviews by SuperMario, World Animation

Welcome to the last part of our Chinese animated guide. This part will cover Chinese traditional art style, for me personally this is the most enjoyable group. The first thing you might notice in these shows are they were in different format ratio, lean more towards the Academy ratio format. I always find their traditional art style more compelling, but somewhat conservative approach (since for long decades the Chinese insist to use this style over and over again). Luckily, these restricts have been loosen up in recent years without locking into any particular one style. As a result we have those shows below as a more relaxed and more updated version of their traditional style. Here are again the 6 shows in no particular order:

Romance of Three Kingdoms (三国演义)

romance of 3 kingdoms

This is a 2009 Chinese adaptation, so not to be confused with the various anime versions. Based on the popular work “Romance of Three Kingdoms” (which people regards its influence in East Asia literature is like that of Shakespeare in English literature). What we have in this episode are the three legendary warriors Liu Bei, Zhang Fei, Guan Yu become brothers and they fight together. I love the traditional character designs, and they provided solid enough animated scenes. But I can’t get pass the fact that a girl who was pushed down a cliff, not only she’s not die, but seems unharmed and she then proceeds to play musical after that. Weird. She must had been on crack I think! Besides that, I always meant to read the actual book, but its length (800,000 words) always put me off. This series so far is solid enough for me to follow it through.

Continue reading “Chinese Animation Guide – Part 4: Chinese Traditional Animated shows” →

Flying witch – 08

by SuperMario, posted in Currently Watching:, Flying Witch

Watching Flying witch really feel like listening to a classical music, where the long running time flies by and we actually feel it more than try to understand it. This week we continue what was left off last week, with Makoto, Chinatsu, Kei meeting the owners of the café shop and their regular customers. This is Flying witch in their most confidence. The pacing, the music, the character and background designs are very consistent and complement each other, with many little details that further shows how much the creators care about this world. I always prefer the magical realism part of the show than the everyday rural life part, and this episode is choke full of the former, with for the first time introducing a whole range of new characters, all of them are interesting I should say. Anzu and her mother add another solid charm to the cast. Anzu is my new favorite characters, with her hair styled like Shinobu, she seems more self-serious than the rest of the cast. The mother has a more easy, laidback type and she was more amused, not disturbed by the Makoto’s misunderstanding. And then we meet the new customers, each of them are as different from each other as it can be, ranging from a pair of ladybugs, The veil of darkness and the fox. Each of them are part of nature, which each of them contributes different things to the nature, and to the witch’s life. Little details are again too many but blink-and-you-miss-it moments, like the fact that this coffee shop even showcase jewelry, or what do you think the Veil of Darkness will drink in the shop? Yes, coffee and reading book of course. Or the fox would drink milk along with his usual food: winter cherry.

The second small part followed Akame as she tries to test out her new invention, for the shake of having fun no less. I had my suspicion weeks ago about a bay that featured in the OP, which really look like China – Vietnam landscape. This week we got an answer, that the place is Ha Long bay in Vietnam, non-subtlety (well, Akame kinds of scream it to our face this time), that confirmed my mention on her wearing the Vietnamese traditional dress (which, again, little details that you might have missed). Overall this is a stand out Flying witch episode, we are into their 8th episode and it has never failed to be consistent and atmospheric. I just hope I can meet these new characters again, in any place other than this coffee shop.

~SuperMario~

Mayoiga – 09

by SuperMario, posted in Currently Watching:, Mayoiga

Now the trick to enjoy Mayoiga is to expect the unexpected. Anything could happen, and probably will. The series has successfully tweaked our noses weeks after weeks, then if Mayoiga stops being ridiculous and becomes conventional, I would be very disappointed. The fun is again on par this week and we have one of the most bizarre flashback of the show (which already a high bar), together with ridiculous monsters and crazy character’s interactions. In other words, AWESOME.

Let’s get to the ridiculous part of this episode, shall we?  The biggest revelation this week is of course, Hayato’s past. Prior to this episode, Hayato seems to be one of our most sane person on this colorful group, except for some motherly attitude towards Mitsumune, he might be the one who keeps our insane cast a balance. Well, maybe not. He turns out to be as insane as Lovepon’s level, wanting to keep Mitsumune as his pet. I believe his very existence in the series so he could murmur this speech: “I realized that I need a puppet of my own”. It makes sense. Hayato behaviors and his past fits like a glove to what Mayoiga has been established so far. And Hayato got an extra point for his trauma past (the over-control of the parents is totally different from his fear (his grandma’s picture, which was another victim from their parents), I’d be damn if he could ever resolve his own issues. But the crowning achievement for me is Valkana with his line: “I managed to escape because it was kinda surprisingly low”. The delivering is just pitch-perfect and deadpan, especially from the serious guy Valkana.

Many ridiculous unresolved plot lines appear throughout this episode like a spider-web. The tunnel scenario ended with the Driver again being the most childish and stubborn man of the series by doing exactly what others say not to do. He himself was vanished afterward but it seems like no one care at this point. The Lion group contains of Lion, Maimai and Nanko tried to investigate the tunnel (which ridiculous method, putting Maimai into the tunnel to see if she still sees the monsters) and get interrupted by Jack, who then was interrupted by an unknown man, presumably Masaki’s uncle. If all of that doesn’t make any sense, then I do this series justice.  I have to say the monsters appear to be more like a mascot characters this week, they not actually scary and they at least don’t mean any harm. Maybe they are just like a device for characters to look through their darkness, then perhaps they will get back to the real world? That a sense I get from Mitsumune waking up at the end of the episode, but we will soon know the answer next week. At this rate if next week we find out that Nanko and Koharun (the only two left who still act like normal human being) turn out to be insane, I wouldn’t be surprise at all.

~SuperMario~

Re:Zero -Starting Life in Another World – 09

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

This week I happened to see the result of delaying the release of Re:Zero on a certain message board. It was pure pandemonium as there were those too lazy to google demanding the next episode, trolls trying to convince people the episode was delayed to next week with fake screenshots of twitter posts, haters and generally a cluster of utter idiocy that the internet can only provide. All this chaos over tennis delaying the episode. Guess I can say Re:Zero essentially is the most popular series of the season. Considering with popularity comes a cancerous fan base that fills me with unease, even the best of games or shows can be devalued by the overly loud fan base placing it on a pedestal. I worry because I actually really like this show and that delay killed me just as much as anyone else. Through this show still has it’s flaws it still manages to give me the giddy feeling every time an episode comes out. One of the flaws I consider is that I found it a bit odd when Subaru started listing out the children’s dreams to motivate Rem to help him. I get why he was doing it but it came out of nowhere. It is also made a bit awkward when he had to give another speech yet again to convince her to let him look for the last kid in the forest. Having two motivational speeches right by one another is a bit disconcerting. Subaru’s meta-isms can still be annoying at times and the characters do need a little bit more development.

The culprit behind the death of Subaru in the first run has been determined. And it’s….the dog with the shifty eyes! Well when you put it like that it sounds rather silly but taking into account the foreshadowing….well it’s still quite silly. My guess is the dog is the familiar of a mage(Like Puck is to Emilia.) likely related to the organisation who tried to steal Emilia’s emblem. Considering the focus on killing off Subaru this could be a result of the grudge Elsa has againest Subaru for messing up her plans. I don’t think this is an independent incident considering the timing and the way one kid was removed from the group specifically to lure Subaru out alone. Even the little girl Subaru rescues is the one who lead him to the curse puppy in the first place. Perhaps the girl is the perpetrator? I didn’t see a bite on her for one thing. This happens to be the only time Roswell left the Mansion, by flight which does suggest he’s quite a badass, and I have a firm suspicion that he was made to leave the mansion on purpose. The timing of the attack on the kids and him leaving was far too coincidental. My guess is that the shaman found out that Subaru forced Betrix to dispel the curse and resorted to measures to lure Subaru to the forest. Taking Roswell out of the equation so he couldn’t turn the tide against the Ma-beasts. Still Rem managed to put up one hell of a fight and she’s quite the berserker. Seems she’s an Oni which the subtitles have translated as demon but Oni fits better considering. I get the feeling that the tale Subaru told of the red and blue Oni has more relevance to them than previously suspected. Perhaps Ram made a deal to turn human in order to get closer to humans and it backfired on her maybe?

The second half of the episode where Subaru and Rem venture into the forest to rescue the kids was some truly tense and excellent sequence. For this part of the show had something not a lot of anime have. That is genuine stakes for the viewer and characters. In many a series it tries to fool you that characters can die. However in many cases that is simply an illusion and the viewer knows the characters are not in any true danger. Because they are the heroes and the heroes can’t die until the story concludes. Of course some characters can die on special occasions but it a fairly rare occurrence. However in Re:Zero, Subaru and anyone can die at any given moment. Sure that only means that Subaru returns to the starting point but the show has made it a point to give Subaru’s deaths gravitas. For Subaru this means a horrible death and resetting to the beginning. This loss is also felt by the viewer because all the development and efforts Subaru made to get closer to people disappear. When watching this episode I was fairly certain Subaru was going to die, but I didn’t want him to die. For if he dies that means the Rem and Ram who softened up to him die with him. I will never see the result of the promise he made to Rem or how she will see him after this event. I never knew for certain if Subaru would die this time or live and watching the last few minutes had me on the edge of my seat as the show gave me false death flags and raised my hopes as Subaru escaped near death. That’s what I call damn fine entertainment. I do applaud the animators and direction during these scenes. While there are still shortcuts being taken, the music and direction more than make up for it. In particular that piano piece that played during Rem’s transformation was downright perfect and while I truly don’t have linguistic knowledge to give the japanese acting a fair assessment, I can really feel some strong emotion in the performance.Maybe I have been spoiled by the likes of One Punch Man and Fate but I am more sensitive to shortcuts in animation when regarding fight scenes. However what fight scenes that are there are quite excellent. Overall White fox has kept a high level of animation consistency throughout the series and I hope they keep it up.

~AidanAK47~

Kiznaiver – 08

by AidanAK47, posted in Currently Watching:, Kiznaiver

In my last post I assumed that this episode would be about Tenga as the episodes title seems to suggest but it turned out to be more an episode about Agata than anything else. It basically confirmed my previous assumptions about Agata and Noriko being involved with the previous Kiznaiver project when they were children and the episode ends, at a rather inconvenient time, when Agata realises who Noriko is and regains his memories. The end of the episode was certainly the best part for me as it was done marvelously but I do feel bad for Chidori as she’s outright ignored while confessing. I am not sure what triggered Agata’s flashback to the past and cause him to start running to Noriko. The last scene was a little unclear on just how he got to her. It seems to suggest that he ran from the front door to the courtyard and pushed Noriko out of the way of a falling statue.. As for the reason why he ran to Noriko, I like to believe that he and her are still connected to each other because of the last Kiznaiver experiment. But there may be more meaning behind what Noriko said at the end about Agata being inside herself. Chances are it’s simply her mentioning that they knew each other in the past as she theorised in the first episode about wanting to see yourself in others. However to go off the rails a bit, what if she was saying that when the Kiznaiver project ended, her and Agata’s personalities somehow got switched? It would be rather interesting if the reason Agata changed was because he had his traits switched with Noriko and in turn Noriko inherited his. After all, Noriko despite her appearance is very confident and brash whereas Agata became more shy and reserved. Seeing Agata in the past this could suggest that his consciousness may have swapped with Noriko’s. It’s unlikely but I would find it quite fascinating if that was the case.

It’s truly a fourth wall breaker when characters within the show start shipping characters together. For the most part the pairings are as you would expect except for one. To some this may not be as much of a surprise but to me I found it was something that came out of nowhere. Namely that Niko has feelings for Tenga. Now when I heard this I assumed this was just the project managers making a mistake but the rest of the episode seems to suggest the same thing. As far as I can tell, there have only been three signs that indicated this development. One, when Tenga groped her in the first episode. Two, when Niko was pouting over Tenga lavishing attention on Chidori. And three, when he patted her on the head in the last episode. Other than that this seems as out of the blue as that romance between Hulk and Black Widow that nobody should have wanted.(I see absolutely no reason why people thought they would be interested in each other in the first place.) I see more evidence to suggest that Niko likes Maki rather than Tenga. I don’t really like what this brings as we now have a long line of crushes which might lead to unnecessary drama later on. Niko likes Tenga, Tenga likes Chidori, Chidori likes Agata, Agata likes Noriko and nobodies with who they want to be with. Before I felt like this whole thing could work out as Noriko and Agata seems pretty mutual and Chidori’s feelings for Agata feel more like the remnants of a crush rather than genuine love. Things could have easily been resolved in a nice little bow but now we have a third wheel to the party. Oh Niko, if Chidori’s love is doomed to set sail, yours is doomed before it can even be built. If Niko manages to get together with Tenga then by all means I will be very surprised but as far as I am concerned I say the only thing that awaits her is a jealous hissy fit and a forever alone. I certainly don’t want that to happen to her but really it’s the usual fate for these types. What makes me not in favor of this development is that it sucks the fun out of Niko and then she could fall to the fate of many a comedic character that falls in love. They get too serious and stop being fun.

We have gone over the halfway point of the season and what concerns me is that I still don’t really know what Kiznaiver is striving for. Certainly things have happened over the past 8 episodes but if feels disjointed and unorganised. When looking it over I fail to see a connecting narrative, instead a series a events with no defined goal or purpose. For example, we had an entire episode devoted to Hazama and yet after that he has had no real purpose within the narrative. It’s possible they might start using him for something like here to rile up the Kiznaivers but I fail to see the purpose of devoting an episode to him joining when he could have just been in the group from the start. The only thing that seems to have dominant narrative purpose is romance which I think is a poor use of the setup. The sharing pain aspect hasn’t had much of a definitive purpose besides giving them a reason to interact with one another. While I do not consider the past episodes bad it does feel rather directionless. I think if this continues I will look back on the series and find that it didn’t really feel like anything happened.

~AidanAK47~