Tag: analysis

Zaregoto Series OVA – 01 [Day 3 (1) The Savant Gathering]

by SuperMario, posted in Currently Watching:, OVAs and Movies:, Zaregoto Series

Another NisiOisiN’s light novel series adapted by Shaft?

Count me in as I admit that Monogatari series is one of my beloved shows. Well, certainly one of the shows that I spend the most time with. I always love the writing of NisiOisiN, and I understand that many of his trademarks are not for everyone: his long, rather meaningless chatter banter; his sexual overtones and his rather oblivious main boy protagonist could easily turn readers off; but the things I love the most about his writing is that he cares for his characters, they are flawed people but they’re always growing, and his arcs have a tendency to end strong, indicate that he understands his stories well (something quite frankly I have my doubts on the majority of anime out there). Zaregoto appears to be his first writing efforts back when he was… 21 years of age and we already encounter many of his usual quirks here. Shaft adapting this anime meaning that we have a lot of impressionist backgrounds, scenes that call attention to itself and the visual switches freely depending on the mood of the scenes and most noticeable of all heaps of frantic editing. To say all that I’m not here to compare this one with Monogatari series (even if they have the same overall feeling and that male protagonist is so far another version of Araragi-kun), so I will try my best to shut any of the comparison from now on and just talk about Zaregoto. Now, let’s begin:

Zaregoto presents the many settings in which an unnamed protagonist (I, or li-chan) has to encounter and the mysteries he eventually has to resolve. This OVA will focus on the first book of the LN series, titled The Beheading Cycle: The Blue Savant and the Nonsense Bearer which take place in an isolated island, owned by the lady Akagami (who is cursed with a disease that cause people want to kill; as a result she was exiled to that island). If I have to comment on the characters of Zaregoto in this first episode, I’d say that they are completely over the top. After all, they are all geniuses to begin with. And of course, genius people all talk like their heads are in the clouds. The show followed our MC interact with each of them through a one-on-one fashion. Through his eyes, we have encountered 4 of them so far and each of them have their own voices. With this episode’s main focus is to introduce the cast members, they already add something to the overall picture. But like one of the character already addressed, what they appear so far isn’t their true self, or rather, what his current impressions about them are all wrong.

I’m rather curious on the notion of “genius” because firstly the cast members are exceptional in varying fields: one is an engineer, the others range from academic, chief, artist to fortune teller. They don’t really have anything in common except they’re extraordinary in what they do. In relation to others, they don’t really see eyes to eyes in most of things as the academic girl and the artist girl hated each other guts (and I love the irony in naming as of course the 7 chosen people among the chosen have to be named The Seven Fools, right?). Another interesting point around that notion of genius is in many instances, the blue hair girl Tomo is addressed as Blue savant. Now, in contrast to prodigy, savant is actually a developmental disability and most of people who have savant syndrome suffer brain damages. The most distinguished features between those two often are by their IQ. People who have savant syndrome has low IQ overall but they possess exceptional skills in other areas. Also, the first part of our MC talking with some strange woman is about that very theme of being genius: because they are a prodigy, they unintentionally trample others without knowing the consequences of those actions. The theme of genius is set up nicely so far so I’m eager to see how they make use of its theme in later episodes.

Shaft’s styles in this anime have been solid as expected. I actually like the wide ranges of worlds/ territories settings in Zaregoto and this setting of an isolated mansion is overall impressive. In some parts of this episode, Shaft uses panning shots to both keep the conversations as its main focus, but slowly shifts our attention to other characters. For symbolisms though, while I’m pleased to see each female characters have their own coloring (you can see for yourself in those screenshots), I’m not so sure the use of variations of chess in this episode. We know that the academic girl talks about shogi, but in the beginning scene the boy and that strange woman are sitting in a ordinary chessboard. Hmmm. Maybe our MC’s just meant to be a pawn in that chess? His clock was stopped at one time by someone and I think it could be an important detail for later episodes. Anyway, the big event (the murder) is yet to come so this episode mainly introduces the cast to us. In that vein, I’m quite satisfied with the execution of this episode. The only downside would be we have to wait for another month to catch up, but I have my fingers crossed that the wait is worth it.

Thunderbolt Fantasy Review – 84/100

by SuperMario, posted in Anime Reviews, Reviews by SuperMario, Thunderbolt Fantasy

Sometimes you dread for the current state of anime: high school settings, cute girls, fan-service jokes, idol madness… that you wish for once to see something different, and out of nowhere an oddball like this just pop up: a wuxia puppetry show influenced by Taiwanese glove puppetry written by Gen Urobuchi. The sheer fact that it was greenlit at all was mind-blowing enough, but the most absurd things was the audience it aimed: the anime medium. Because no matter how you look at it: this isn’t an anime at all. Well, not even an animation to begin with. I’m not going to detail about it as I already addressed it in my weekly post. The fact that this is a wuxia puppetry show already makes it a unique show among anime world and all the more reason to watch it. But on top of all that, the show’s writing and execution are really excellent and refreshing. If the show just relies on its gimmick of being a puppetry show, it will fall apart very quickly, but Thunderbolt Fantasy understands that their characters are the real stars of the show, so they spend a huge amount of them talking to each other, explore their philosophy of life and the campy dialogues are entertaining and humorous.

Set in a fictional Eastern Asia settings, the show tells a story of a merry band in the quest to retrieve a legendary sword that was stolen by Mie Tian Hai, a skilled swordsman with a history of black magic. Our MC Shang Bu Huan is a mysterious swordsman who came from another area, that’s why he doesn’t know much about this place and thus got tagged along to the quest by Gui Niao, a cool-head strategist and the bunch of misfits including the naive guardian girl, the One-Eyed archer, the young Spear-wielder, a demon necromancer and the bloodthirsty assassin. The group, each has their own unique appearance and personalities with different set of goals head up to the Seven Sins Tower, and there were double-crossing, triple-crossing, blood-splattering, heads rolling and even demons, undead, skeleton birds join in along the way. Indeed, half of these characters here are easily villains in other story and the fun here is to see their huge ego crashing with each other.

Because this is a puppetry show, there are many elements that you won’t find in other anime. The characters, for example, have very static faces. Especially when they are in close-up, it’s hard to tell apart what they are thinking because of the lack of expression in their faces, but this issue actually works in the show’s favor, for how else would one portrait a group that double-crossing is the norm? Second, the practical effects are truly what set it apart from other anime. There is little amount of action for a true-action show, but when the action kicks in, it’s a feast to the eyes. Bloods squirming all over, bodies blowing up, heads rolling that you can actually feel the weight of the blood dripping are refreshing to say the least. Lastly, I have to highlight the costume designs because they really go all in for the costumes to make the characters as distinctive and stand out as ever.

The characters themselves is easily the show’s best strength. Each character is elegantly designed and all of them have their own unique mannerism, assisted greatly by the use of puppetry, something that ordinary anime usually lack. My favorite characters in that vein is the demon lady Xing Hai, as whenever she talks, it feels like she’s singing and whenever she walks it feels just like she’s dancing. Like Mayoiga, those characters all have interesting traits and utterly over the top but here in this show they can actually get loose and carry the story. Like for example, the show spends half an episode for Sha Wu Sheng the Roaring Killer Phoenix challenging Mie Tian Hai (and then loose despite knowing it all), simply because these characteristics are unmistakably Sha Wu Sheng. In Thunderbolt Fantasy, those characters embrace their roles to the bitter end. As a main character, Shang Bu Huan is like our blank-state who unfamiliar to this world (like ourselves) and he’s being the most sensible person in this whole madness. I particular love his stunning reactions every time something absurd happens. Moreover, he bounces off other characters very well, creating a rather great chemistry between them and the dialogues maintain the campy sense that so entertaining to watch. There are pure gold moments throughout the series like when Shang Bu Huan talks to each member of the group to find their real motives, or simple quick remarks like “the temple smells offensive” or even “it’s already a sitting fight before the sword fight” because of course they’re too awesome to fight it normal way. Like a puppetry show, these characters are just there to perform their larger-than-life roles, but they perform it so well that I have a very good time following them.

But this show is not only about characters having fun, there is a theme for the show if you want to look deeper. The notion of the sword is both mentioned various times throughout the series and the show twists that notion around quite wonderfully. In this world, swords represent power of destruction. Mie Ting Hai seeks out the most famous sword because he believes his technique deserved the best. The demon Yao Tu Li was put to sleep for 200 years because of the sword. The characters kill off hundreds of people through their swords… As long as you are good at swords, you have the ultimate power in this world. But not for our two mains Shang Bu Huan and Gui Niao. In fact, the series showcases two extreme spectrums from Shang Bu Huan that go directly against with the above notion. The “sword’ that Shang Bu Huan always carries around is just a piece of wood painted silver, because he doesn’t want to cause more deadly troubles with the swords, but when in needed, he could pull out 36 legendary swords (that he said he was about to expose them, sly guy!) to send the monster to the black hole (quite literally!), Gui Niao also hates using swords as a mean of killing. The legendary sword that everyone seek in the end was destroyed meaninglessly.

Thunderbolt Fantasy is the most entertaining series you will encounter this year. Plain and simple. Urobuchi writing is excellent in this show, both leaving enough room for the group to act, and maintaining the plot that both is fast and unpredictable, but always makes sense and a lot of fun. It appears that we will have an entirely new cast on the second season, plus our mains Shang Bu Huan and Gui Niao and if that’s the case then I’m totally on board. After all, Shang Bu Huan’s only weakness is his trust towards people and Gui Niao happens to be the master of manipulation; so I’m eager to see how our MC get himself dragged into Gui Niao’s little scheme next time. Like this first season already demonstrated, the world is simply too small for the two of them.

Magical Girl Raising Project – 06[Get the Super-Rare Items!]

by AidanAK47, posted in Currently Watching:, Magical Girl Raising Project

Looks like this show has taken my previous advice and decided to up the kill count. This time we have two casualties.(Yes, two. Not three) The first is Shou, Koyuki’s protector who seems to have underestimated the fight he was in for and Cranberry has killed him. The fight itself I think could have had more flash to it which is something of a problem with all the fights in this series. Either poor direction or lacking animation make these fights less exciting that they should be but even then maybe the reason the fights are not engaging is that the characters just don’t have enough to them to make the fight exciting. In all honestly I seen this kids death coming the moment he swore to protect Koyuki but it really is a shame that he died just when Koyuki was considering him boyfriend material. If it’s one trait that this show needs to get rid off it’s showing flashbacks of characters who will die in the episode. Today’s episode had two flashbacks showing just who was going to die. The end of the episode showed that it would be to this shows benefit if the deaths were more unexpected as shown by hardgore Alice’s decapitation which really did catch me off guard. Still it looks like Alice lives up to her name and can survive having her head chopped off, making her a zombie magical girl. Well…it’s was bound to happen sometime and the sad thing is she isn’t the first one if you take Mahou shoujo of the end into account. But the ability to heal from wounds like that would be a serious boon in this battle and she should make for a good ally for Koyuki if that is her intent.

So Magicaliod was a homeless girl who just so happened to become a magical girl by using a second hand phone. It’s a pity she died this episode as I was just starting to like her but I guess that is a big fault in this show. Whoever gets developed also gets the axe. it’s nice to see Koyuki break out of her no violence policy and move in a more interesting direction. The girl needs to break out of being a dull character and start getting more interesting. Carnberry at least seems to have gotten more development as we learn that this elimination round was due to her and some contract she has with Fav. It’s possible she works at the company that makes the game or the game itself is some sort of magical construct. Either way it does seem like Fav’s intent is to raise strong magical girls and this whole ordeal is some kind of spartan training for something bigger. Overall I find his methods highly questionable as Snow white is at the top of the charts and she certainly isn’t what I would call powerful. Though Fav seems to be more interested in entertainment that his objective. I did like when he stopped adding pon to his sentences and his voice took on a layer of malice. Overall it seems this duo will prove to be the main antagonists for this particular arc but with Swim Swim still around that could change.

Speaking of Swim Swim, their group looks to have nabbed Fav’s latest offerings of special items in exchange for lifespan. These weapons are likely to give her team the edge while giving Koyuki a nice moral dilemma. It is interesting that she did in fact press the button to exchange five years of her life for weapon. If Swim Swim’s group hadn’t grabbed the item first she might have regretted that choice. But damn Swim Swim when for the 25 year one without hesitation. There is something seriously wrong with this girl and even she herself mentioned that it wasn’t that she wasn’t scared of losing what could be a quarter of her lifespan. Again it was her weird sensibility of following Rulers example. This is getting more interesting but this show does lack something to make it truly good. At the moment it is passable but the action scenes do lack impact, the characters don’t have enough development to make the situation compelling and the story so far has been a bit too predictable.

Drifters – 05[Bring Back Love]

by AidanAK47, posted in Currently Watching:, Drifters

I can’t be the only one who was sad that the opening didn’t play for this episode. I mean it’s great we get more content but that opening really does get you in the mood for Drifters. So on to our episode and Oda has a plan to take on the soldiers coming to slaughter the elven village. And that plan is shit. I mean literally, the plan makes use of fecal matter quite a bit. For one he’s throwing the bodies of the dead soldiers into a pit in order to make Saltpeter which is likely so he can produce gunpowder. They buried the heads to pay respect to the dead but the bodies are nothing more than raw materials to them, a fact which causes the Octobrist official to be revolted. All things considered it’s fairly practical to make use of your enemies corpses as well as prevent disease by leaving lying around. But it is fairly morally repugnant to make use of human bodies like compound fertilizer. This does show that while the show is rooting for our protagonists, they are not necessarily heroes. The Drifters for the most part are the lesser of two evils and while there actions are right for the moment, who really knows just how much of an effect the Drifters will have on this world over time. Though this was undercut by the comedy which really doesn’t know when to come on screen. I think trying to make boob jokes after discussing how you were using corpses as compost is a bit too much of a segway.

We also have Oda getting the Elves to make a makeshift barricade and to anyone who knows their history will recognise just what Oda is talking about when he says he stole the idea from Hideyoshi. For one standout moment of the warring states period was when in an effort to take over a stronghold, Hideyoshi constructed a castle in a day right beside it. Oda’s is significantly less impressive but it suits the need. When the soldiers mentioned the shit in the well I thought Oda was aiming for some kind of methane explosion. But as it turns out he was planning way dirtier tactics. The method of covering arrows in shit reminded me of a old Warren Ellis Comic I read quite a while ago that was called “Crecy” and that really showed me just how crap can be used as a weapon. The comic was about the battle of Crecy which was battle between the English and the French.

According to the comic the English covered their swords in shit with the basic logic that if a sword wound doesn’t kill them, then the infections they get afterwards most certainly will. As a tactic it’s pretty solid though ungraceful, in this case it really helped to kill the moral of the troops here. People are much less willing to fight if getting hit with one arrow will lead to a slow agonising death. As the commander said, if they all rushed Oda’s makeshift barricade then they would win but people aren’t quite so brave to rush something when it would mean a large majority of them will die. Yoichi doesn’t seem too keen on Oda’s use of tactics but he seems to be from the oldest age where honor was more prevalent. On a side note I wonder if anyone else didn’t actually figure out that Yoichi was a man by this point. Honestly I was seeing him as a woman up until episode two as his design is fairly effeminate. Most likely on purpose.

So the village subjection team is slaughtered and our main characters use the armour to fool the lord into letting them into the castle. Thus the Elves run to rescue their women. Alls well that ends well? Well…I will be blunt in that upon hearing that the army takes away the elven women once a year that I had suspicions of what they would find. Quite frankly I doubted those girls were sitting back and knitting tea cosies. But I was at least had a tiny hope these guys would be racist enough that they wouldn’t have sex with an “inferior” race. You know then the women would be a bit beat up and a little worse for wear but at least they wouldn’t be…this.  It looks like I give them way too much credit. Master Race huh? I say if you can do this kind of crap and still walk away without shame then I say it proves you aren’t some superior race, instead you lot have forfeited the right to call yourselves human. So Toyohisa I agree very much with your judgement. Killing an unarmed man is a moral shame, but these things are not what we can call men. So I hope there’s a nice bloodbath next episode and lastly, I hope that the episode title isn’t some cheap joke on the ending scene. For that would be in bad taste.

3-gatsu no Lion – 05 [Agreement – Over the Cuckoo’s Nest]

by SuperMario, posted in 3-gatsu no Lion, Currently Watching:

In a typically 3-gatsu no Lion fashion, the first chapter “Agreement” starts in the show’s most comfort zone: flashbacks inside Rei’s head. When you really think about the overall structure of this chapter, you can see that it’s the busiest chapter so far of the show. They begin with Rei’s memory on the father’s best friend (soon to be his adoptive father), continue with the current day detailing Rei picking up Momo, then dig deep into his thoughts again reflecting the day that his adoptive father decided to bring him home. Those three parts are masterful reflected his very journey to eventually end up in the household of Kouda family; with little happiness and a lot of sadness. And that theme is exactly what made this chapter one of the most complex chapter this show ever put on.

The first part of this first chapter is a memory of Rei towards his adoptive father, Kouda, as his father’s best friend and long-time shogi rivalry. Kouda, along with his own father, were in the Association together when they were young. The Japan Shogi Association has a society where all the players under 24 years old trained to become professionals and basically the only way to become to a shogi pro. Those who can’t achieve 4-dan by the time of that age will be automatically discarded. He’s the only one outside of his real family who would treat him with respect, so he was always looking to play shogi with him. There’s a brief but happy moments for Rei, as he enjoys himself playing shogi, something that later in his life becoming more like a “contract”, more like a thorn among the roses.

Later, when he picks up Momo from school and tends the wounds for her, her little helpless arm reminds him a lot of his deceased little sister. That must be one of the sadness, darkness period for Rei when suddenly, all the people that were once important for him were gone forever, and he was too young to fully understand that they will never come back, nor did him know about the situations surrounding him. Then his father’s rival came, asked him if he really loved shogi, and he lied. With Rei, he was never passionate about shogi, he just did it to please his father(s) and moreover he just happened to be very good at this. His accepting to live with Kouda family really reflect the complexity of Rei’s character. He knew that it was a chance for him to not end up in the orphanage, so he took that chance and as far as he is now, he achieved what his adoptive father expected of him. Could anyone blame him for that?

Unfortunately, there were still someone who blamed Rei for what he did, as we witness later on the next chapter, Over the Cuckoo’s nest. Those were the children of Kouda’s family, Kyouko the sister and Ayumu, about his age. In a family with a strong and proud tradition of shogi, the children know that they had to be good a shogi in order to catch their father’s attention. You might think of that as an exaggeration but believe me when I say that in a sports or art’s family, this happen more often than you would think. The family spends their entire time to work on the sports/ arts they loved and they eventually have their standards that they want their children to follow, and sometimes to the child those standards set by their parents become their institutions. Things started to fall apart within the Kouda family when Rei was better at shogi than the two. Kyouko begin to lash out her temper at Rei, while the little brother holed himself up in his room playing video games. Now we know the person that harassed Rei in his memory from last week was Kyouko (but they seem to be older in that flashback). Having a very strict personality himself, the fallout of his own kids doesn’t mean that he had anything against Rei, as he continued to support Rei (the strongest shall survive), but that very attitude made Rei feel guilty towards the two so he decided to move out. When your own success results at an expense of others, how could he be happy with that? The symbols of cuckoo’s life appropriately reflect his situations, and towards his feeling to his adoptive father, he’s still very much respect the man and in his own way care about him.

As I said before, the show is at its strongest when it digs deeper to Rei’s sad past and further reflects his inner emotions as he is now and eventually learn to express and live a happy life through the help of the sisters and his friends. While his past is indeed heavy, this episode never cheapens his emotions by showcase how miserable his life was, but by detailing how he was able to continue to climb up and progress despite things might turn out ugly at times. 3-gatsu no Lion remains a very solid show.

Flip Flappers – 05 [Pure Echo]

by SuperMario, posted in Currently Watching:, Flip Flappers

And Flip Flippers is back in business; with a style. But guess what, instead of the girls adventuring in a new Pure Illusion world like last week’s cliffhanger suggested, it appears the show has some time skip. So here in this episode we witness them preparing to go on another Pure Illusion, and then learn that Cocona and Papika at least had 2 more new adventures and all lost to Yayaka’s side. Whether the show will get back to those two or skip it entirely is anyone’s guess. But based on the little screen shots that we saw regarding those adventures (robot and plant worlds? Count me in!), they look fantastic enough so I hope they get back to it. But then again, I’m not really sure why they skip these Illusion worlds? Isn’t the main plot point of Flip Flappers being the girls adventuring those worlds? So they must have an overarching plot? But what overarching plot, then?

It seems more apparent to me that Yayaka really care for the wellbeing of Cocona that made them more like a rival than an enemy. Let put it this way, Papika just meets up Cocona and declares that Cocona’s the one she been looking for and follows her around since, whereas Yayaka knows and understands Cocona back from childhood and has been her only friend ever since. That is to say Yayaka’s genuine care for Cocona is much more grounded for me, compared to Papika’s. There is that conflict between Papika and Yayaka that later become an actual fight and I see the conflict as a running theme for the series. Adding to that, the girls have no idea what they get themselves into. They are easily lost track in their worlds, sometimes being irresponsible for themselves and when being asked what they really want for collecting the fragments, their answers are uncertain. These fragments might hold a powerful, and maybe hideous, power that could change the world and the girls at least need to know what all the deals are instead of being manipulated like that. The other group, on the other hand, goes to such extreme of modifying the physicals and the brains of Yayaka and the twins in order to gather these fragments.

It’s always so fun to speculate about each week’s Pure Illusion world, and I’m not suggesting that there are more hidden, deeper meaning behind those worlds. The show is what it is- a whole mess of many intrigued ideas and symbols put in together- so that it’s best to just take it at face values, but again it’s really compelling to sit back and wonder how they come up with these symbols and motifs for their worlds in a first place. So what do we have in this week’s settings? The creators sure don’t hide their impressions on this world: it’s obviously dark and creepy. From the typically “dark and stormy night” settings (the rain that causes blood!), to students with no faces (once again addresses the theme of identity and personality), distorted voices, creepy dolls, and the endless loop of that hell and the teams literally run into time to break that loop. I also can’t help but laugh at the goofiness our main heroines are this time. Remember previous episode where they were overpowered gung-ho fighters who jump up the sky and smash the earth? This week they constantly got scared and run for their lives by the faceless creatures. Yeah, keep running while your arms raised up, girls! It’s interesting to note that, unlike other Pure Illusion worlds that we encountered so far, this world is based on their real world. The school is there, the clock tower is still there, the dome that reminds me again of Utena, and Yayaka and the twins are already there in those new uniforms before Cocona and Papika arrived (the twin boy looks hilariously cute in his female uniform dress).

I say another main theme for this world’s Pure Illusion is the ability to break out from the vicious cycle, from something that keep luring you out of your initial goals. Like the Hotel California, the self-destruction place where once you’re in, you can’t get out because you lose tracks of why come in for. Lastly, the theme of underlying sexual-awakening is again presented here (“hot and bothered”, as the episode put it). Well, this time, again Papika and Cocona have a chance to take bath and sleep together, and Papika has to suck Cocona’s finger over and over again. All that sexuality, yuri motifs are hinted everywhere in that dark society (tea time, that lily flower, piano-leisure time, book reading) and this world is a steep contrast to the bright desert world in episode 3.  While that in that particular episode the theme is more Papika-wise (dealing with finding your true self) and it’s Cocona who got sucked into that world, I could draw the parallel here as well. In this world, they got sucked into the neat society, the expectant of being a part of the whole group, repetition means stable here, something sounds much more like Cocona and this time it is Papika who is lost into that world. These worlds are really extreme versions of an ‘ideal’ worlds that have their own sets of rules, promote certain types of values and Papika and Cocona need to confront those in order to learn more about themselves and grow up. That is a best kind of coming-of-age story for you right there. This episode further confirms its willingness to go wild and trippy without relies on plot or continuity and personally that attitude is all I could ask for. I have fun following them, writing about them and now I can rest assured that Flip Flappers will never betray itself.

Sound! Euphonium 2 – 05 [Miraculous Harmony]

by SuperMario, posted in Currently Watching:, Sound! Euphonium 2

What a bravura piece of performance! Usually if a show wants to showcase how good a music performance is, they’d go for cheap tactics like fast cuts, over-the-top sparkling effects, key still frames, and drawing reactions from audiences. Not with KyoAni. They’re confident enough, and of course talented enough, to play out the entire piece and let that speaks for themselves about the quality. This is easily the highlights of this season so far and will be the one that fans will keep coming back to.

But the first half by no mean is no duds either. By following Kumiko and the band go through a day leading up to the Kansai Competition, the show again excels in showing many subtle moments and development that blink and you might miss it entirely. First, Taki announces to the band that his friends’ duty has ended, which for me was quite sudden because I still don’t know what their real roles are in the whole picture. I think the reason they are presented is to support and shed more lights to Taki’s character, but they actually didn’t do much except being either an info-dumper, or an obvious setup for Reina to get fired-up nonsensically. I hope they’ll be back soon as I still don’t see the show used them to their full potential. While on the train, Hazuki (who sadly was under-developed this season) gives a really light but on-point touch on what she is thinking the upcoming tournament. Being one of a few who isn’t qualified enough, it’s understandable that she sometimes feels like she was left behind by her friends. But being Hazuki, obviously she’s sad, but she isn’t the one who’d disheartened by that. Instead, she vows to work hard to get her place for next year, and encouraging her friends to make it to the Nationals so that would inspire her is a really nice characterization by the show. Aiming to the Nationals not only mean a whole lot for the competitive members, but for the rest of the team as well.

When Kumiko got back home that afternoon, she receives a phone call from her middle school friend, Azusa (who briefly appeared in the first season). Her school Rikka High School will compete in the morning, moreover she asked Kumiko to not to speak with her that day. That again is a nice touch from Sound Eupho because the show keeps adding more perspectives from other cast, making more layers to the story. I totally agree with Azusa here, they might be ‘best friends forever’ but on that one day they’re competitors (I love how Kumiko keeps picking up her toes), and like Kumiko later said the amount of time and efforts all of them put in to practice for that one day affects pretty much everyone in the band, so “no one can think straight now” isn’t an overstatement at all.

I have to give it up for Yuuko for again being shine in her brief moments. She basically acts like herself this episode but the moment feels truly earned. Although qualifying to the Nationals is their goals, the team (especially the third-year students) knows that it’s a hard goal to reach. In addition, for the third-year students, this might be their last performance so they sometimes feel like they’re at the end of the road. This sentiment is echoed by Kaori this week as she tells Yuuko to keep looking after then band or Asuka last season when she said that the fun of practicing is about to conclude when the competition ends. But Yuuko points out correctly that their journey isn’t going to be done yet, let’s try and reach the Nationals together. In other notes, while Sound Eupho never really a show that is strong in terms of comedy, this episode has its absurd moments. Upon hearing Yoroizuka saying that the she will play a solo piece for Nozomi (which still doesn’t sound right for me either), Reina asks Kumiko if she can play the solo part for her. I know Reina isn’t the one who is easily affected by other people so this is really more like the show poking fun on the very notion of playing the piece for someone else. In fact, the very last moments of the episode when Yoroizuka expresses that she’s happy with the competition sadly is the weakest part in otherwise flawless episode for me, as I see for much of her struggle, she comes out as too clean a cut, the drama of her last episode pretty much resolved everything that I don’t feel her grow is natural at all.

But this first half’s best moments come directly from the speech of Asuka. As this show has many times addressed this issues, while Asuka isn’t the president of the club, she has a leader traits and clearly everyone sees her as more influential figure than Haruka the president. This time, she speaks up for the whole band and for once, she lets herself loose and being direct in front of everyone. She wants to try to reach to the Nationals. I noticed the brief exchanges between her and Kumiko during the performance and at this moments I’m not really sure what those exchanges supposed to be. The very nature of concert band is teamwork as everyone contribute their parts to form a collective whole, but for those from the same sections sometimes it means they have to fight each other for the roles. This will put our main Kumiko in an interesting position as Asuka and she both playing Euphonium. I reckon Asuka and Kumiko relationship is going to be the main focus for the latter half of this season, which I will totally be on board.

And now to that wonderful second half performance, it’s just simply mesmerizing. KyoAni always has been very consistent when it comes to the production values, but even with their standard the performance is still a standout. I noticed they used some footages from the previous performance last seasons, but overall the whole performance flows magnificently. Some might say it’s not fair to just focus on the band’s performance so we don’t know how good other bands are, but that’s essentially the point here. When the announcement starts, we’re rooting for them not because how incredible their performance was, but because we have witnessed how hard they tried to produce that piece of music so the results are satisfying because we know they deserved it. And you deserved it too, KyoAni.

Magical Girl Raising Project – 05[New Character!]

by AidanAK47, posted in Currently Watching:, Magical Girl Raising Project

Being the peacemaker in a death game is one surefire way to paint a target on your back. Sure it’s a good thing there are people to run around yelling to give peace a chance but I admit that I agline more with how Ripple sees Nana’s proposal for peace. Empty ideals may be technically right but without anything backing up those flowery words they essentially become hollow. At most Nana has appealed to the administers of the game through Fav which in itself is rather silly as Fav wouldn’t deliver the message if he was behind all this and it’s likely that the Admins know full well whats going on. Other than that Nana has got good intentions but not much else. Based on what we have seen here with Magicaroid scamming Nana with junk items and how she acts at home, it doesn’t look like Nana has any ill intent. However there is an  interesting little bit of info in Winterprisms eyecatch in the midpoint of this episode. It said in her description that “She accepts Nana fully, despite knowing her intentions.” I am not certain as to what this alludes but perhaps Nana isn’t quite as pure as she seems.

For one I find her reasons for wanting to make Winterprism into a magical girl to be odd as she was stating how she was her knight and rambling on about how she can’t be stronger than her protector. I don’t think she is a skemer but perhaps she isn’t quite mentally well. While talking about this two we might as well bring up that Winterprism and Nana are lesbian lovers outside of magical girl form and I certainly appreciate that the yuri angle isn’t being pushed all two hard. The two act like a regular couple instead of yuri fan bait. I would like to say these two are the first official lesbian magical girl couple but that honor goes to Sailor Uranus and Neptune. Even discounting them I consider Nanoha and Fate to be canonical in a relationship.(They live together, sleep together, blush like red beets at each other and they have a kid who calls them both mom. It isn’t outright stated but these two have got to be together.)

While Koyuki warms up to the idea of making Souta her boyfriend, Swim Swim seems to be having trouble figuring out how to handle the Magical girl team with Ruler gone. She’s decided on stealing more Candies but it appears she doesn’t quite know how to go about it. While she’s figuring this out we get introduced to another chaotic addition to the game, Cranberry.(The villains of this show sure do have the least threatening names.) Our new girl seems to not really care about collecting candies and is more in it to face off against strong opponents. Not exactly a original motivation but she is a much needed fire to set off all the oil laying around. One particular thing I noticed about Cranberry is that the group mention she is the oldest magical girl in the area and that makes me think back to the opening scene of the first episode. And sure enough I am certain the girl standing in a magical girl massacre in front of a monster was wearing the same roses on her head as Cranberry does now.

It even added up to her motivation as the girl in the opening scene smiled when fighting off the monster and Cranberry is seeking out the same thrill of fighting strong opponents. This may be insight into what lies beyond this current death game as there appears to be monsters like those in the phone app. Possibly this whole elimination game is a whittling down of the girls in order to get the best fighters to take on these monsters. Magicaliod and Calamity mary continue to get along seeing as they are both scumbags who are willing to go to any means to win. Lastly we have Alice, the newcomer who looks to be very interested in Snow White. The show is trying to paint her as a potential foe but I think she will end  up an ally instead. There was a brief shot of a girl looking up message boards for snow white and I think she’s a fan who wants to help her. Considering that we are reaching the halfway point I think we really should start knocking out some girls as only two have been eliminated so far out of the eight.

Drifters – 04[Active Heart]

by AidanAK47, posted in Currently Watching:, Drifters

Even with a show that is style over substance, there comes a time when a story needs to sit down and lay out what’s going on. Though when I finished this episode I was surprised by just how little actually happened in this episode. Basically we get some info on the world, namely that a Kingdom of Orta is currently taking over large amounts of land and subjugated the elves and dwarfs. These guys seem unrelated to the ends and it looks like them will be a  major obstacle in defeating the ends. One particular detail that Oda figured out through questioning the girl was that the Octobrist organisation don’t have any armies or the like and seem focused on only gathering together the Drifters.

They have managed to provide the drifters with a means of communication with magic translation devices. Other than that however it doesn’t seem like they have much of a plan.This leads to Oda’s conclusion which does bring an interesting problem. Basically he figures the only way to put up a fight is to gain an army, and he plans to do this by taking over Orta. This brings a particular interesting point to mind, namely that Oda gives the people of this land two options. Either die or live under a foreign tyrant. This really does point out just how much damage these foreign invaders are doing to this world.

Hints of the Black Kings identity are shown as the man goes around his soldiers healing their wounds and he mentions that at one time he tried to save humans. I will be blunt as the hinting is getting heavy at this point but it is suspected that the black kIng is in fact Jesus Christ. In our current age I don’t know how controversial it would be to make Jesus the villain of this series. Possibly considering the niche nature of anime it could barely be a blip on anyone’s radar and it’s hardly the most controversial position Jesus has been in. But I love the idea of making Jesus the villain of Drifters. The ends are mainly Martyrs so who better than the most famous martyr in history being their leader. This pit stop is hopefully over and we will be right back with bloody carnage as the Drifters gather up the elves to fight the incoming army.

3-gatsu no Lion – 04 [Hina – Buiesu]

by SuperMario, posted in 3-gatsu no Lion, Currently Watching:

Seems like overalls it’s not a good week for my anime blogging, as all the shows that I’m covering haven’t fared very well this week. Not that they are disasters but all the shows veer off from their greatest strength to a more mediocre approach. For Sound Eupho they went for big climatic drama instead of their focus on dense little moments. For Flip Flappers they abandoned their wild Pure Illusion world for a more mundane and aimless plot, and for 3-gatsu no Lion they passed on their intimate look on real characters for… well… cartoonish characters. 3-gatsu no Lion is at its strongest when the show concentrates on Rei’s inner emotions and how the characters around him in a way change his very perception to be more open and honest to himself. Sadly this episode has little of those moments and instead relies on exaggerated silly moments which simply isn’t as engaging.

As soon as I knew the next chapter was going to focus on Hina, I was actually looking for this since Hina is my favorite character out of the three sisters. But boy, they decide to fall on the usual pitfall of portraying preteen middle school girl: through romance and first crush. Takahashi is the tall boy, baseball-ace from her school and she makes up her mind to cook a bento for him. Takahashi is almost an object of affection from the outside looking in, literally; as Rei stands from outside the field looking into the boy. Hina wants to make the most perfect bento out there, and the whole plan goes as everyone would expect: failed miserably. It’s fun to see her struggling with making foods, each time goes more and more horribly wrong and completely running out of time. But when it’s time for her to give the bento, she couldn’t bring herself to do it.

While so far this chapter stumbles a bit because it ticks all the cliché teen romance plot, at least the chapter ends in a solid note. The ending works because the show still understands its character very well. It explores the insecurity of Hina, something fairly normal for someone her age: about her shyness got the better of her, about feeling vulnerable compared to the “near-perfect” sister. There is a huge age difference between the three sisters, but that makes sense in this context because the three sisters represent different stages of women’s life (I know, I know I might be obsessed with women’s issues but please bear with me this time). This theme becomes apparent here as Hina’s efforts remind Akari of her own, years ago and I believe although they’re different in term of personality, this is a phase that they all had to go through. Furthermore, this chapter ends with the most brilliant execution in this episode, as the voice-over switched gently from Rei to Akari. Up until now, we always follow Rei’s train of thoughts so it’s a nice change to hear other characters say what they’re thinking, and Akari sincere voice really gives of a warm and sweet feeling (unlike the first love) that the chapter wanted to achieve.

On the second half, things got real noisy for Rei as Harunobu came to his house unannounced to practice shogi with him. I certainly like him as a character, since last week the show gives more light to his character, but he also turns me off whenever he’s in that loud and hyperactive mode. Sadly the first half of this chapter was full of this and only when the duo meet the three sisters, things get more interesting. It turns out that he’s getting along well with kids, which actually is unsurprising because he himself still acts like a kid. I like the way the show makes references that obviously inspired by real-life counterparts. Well, others might say Bodoro is a blatant rip-off to Totoro, for me I say that this Bodoro has his own charms. Then it’s Akari who has a weird fetish: she likes everything soft and fluffy and has a affection for Harunobu considering his… ahem… body. Now, that actually becomes an issue. Like I mentioned last week I think the best strength 3-gatsu no Lion has is those characters feel like real people. This episode making their quirks so cartoonish (no, I’ll rephrase: so anime-ish) that they don’t feel like actual people anymore. I know maybe this problem comes from me so if the show still goes with these cartoonish traits then I’ll have to re-evaluate my own judgement.

Overall, besides being the show’s most unremarkable episode yet, I find some of the jokes actually landed well, like all the parts involving “some other people’s kids” or the last scene with Harunobu’s butler Hanaoka and I still think Shaft adapting the show quite effectively so far. There is a lack of Rei’s inner voice this week which actually hurts the show a bit, but we got one brief scene when he’s mentioning ‘love’ and it seems like he was in some kind of abuse with a girl before. This week is just a slightly misstep so I’m not worry too much. 3-gatsu no Lion is still a strong show and I can’t wait to spend more time with them next week.