Tag: episode

Magical Girl Raising Project – 10[Super-Hot! Back-to-Back Battle Events!]

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

I am really starting to dislike how this show is killing off the characters I grow remotely interested in while leaving only the dullest characters to carry the show. Don’t take that to mean I cared about the remaining twin angel that got killed off because her death was pretty deserved. But this cements the twin angels as characters whose only function was to kill off more interesting characters. No, my grief goes to Hardgore Alice who in typical fashion was given some development only to get offed by Swim Swim. What rubs me the wrong way is in how utterly contrived her death was. First with Snow White getting that Alice doesn’t mean her harm only to throw a hissy fit at her after hearing that the death game was going to continue. Then you have Swim Swim take her out in human form were she is knocked out by an arbitrary rule that no one can see her transform and basically not being able to become a magical girl because she couldn’t focus after being mortally wounded. I call bull on that second one as if you are lying in an alley about to die I think that’s the time you would be most focused on saving your own life. I have heard of a couple of things from the light novel which makes these events more sensible. For one, Snow White is supposed to be much more mentally unsound as this whole magical girl battle thing takes a pretty heavy toll on her.

Other rather depressing detail is that before becoming a magical girl, Hardgore Alice planned to kill herself and was regularly stealing her Uncle’s sleeping pills to use to overdose but changed her mind when Snow White helped her find her key. This makes her ability as a magical girl rather ironic as someone who originally wanted to die is given a body that can never die. The last detail makes her death a little more tragic that was in the manga but not the light novel was that it was her uncle that found her in the alley. Because her uncle was around Alice couldn’t change into a magical girl. As sad as it is, that feels like a much more devastating emotional gut punch. Overall I just don’t like how Alice was sacrificed for the sake of Snow White’s development, especially when she was becoming a much more interesting character than her. I get that Snow is supposed to be the archetype of the stereotypical magical girl but she just isn’t doing anything about the situation or showing anything interesting about her character. I think the more interesting road would be for Snow White to get killed off and for Hardgore Alice to carry her torch.

With this the only characters I actually care about are Swim Swim and Ripple. Cranberry is just a bit too one dimensional at the moment to really interest me and I already pointed out why Snow White isn’t particularly compelling. As for Tama, well she’s a background decoration likely not long for this world. With Cranberry’s talks with Fav we at least have a better grasp on what is going on here. Seems Cranberry is the one in charge of this whole game and Fav is acting as an observer. Thing is that Fav and Cranberry are in cahoots and have decided to turn what is normally a selection process that discourages fatalities into a full battle royale. With this we can at least establish that the organisers of the game aren’t malicious but instead it’s those who are running the game that’s turning it into something twisted. It’s a bit weird that the magical world isn’t keeping tabs on her but I guess that was supposed to be Fav’s job seeing as he’s is sending back false reports. If it comes down to either Swim Swim or Cranberry going down next episode I hope it’s Cranberry but Swim Swim just has much more presence as a villain. If this show keeps killing off everyone I somewhat care about this is just going to end up with a final battle where I won’t really care about the outcome.

Drifters – 09[Serious Bomber]

by AidanAK47, posted in Currently Watching:, Drifters

Drifters is at it’s best when the Orte are getting trounced and they are certainly getting a beating here. I could complain over how the Orte are one dimensional villains but after the master race bull and the concentration camp here they are quite literally Nazi’s at this point. Nazi’s are the one type of villain that always deserve a good beating. However it would be good to see the Drifters having some challenge here as the Orte are posing as much of a threat as rubber ducks. This is in part due to the drifters making use of actual tactics when the Orte are following the bare necessities of leading an army. Seeing Nazi’s get killed is hardly a unsatisfying experience but a one sided battle is a rather dull watch. I did think the Orte might actually put up some sort of fight when they brought out the heavy armored knights but that was quickly taken out with Olminu’s walls and gunpowder. Speaking of which I thought Oda’s gunpowder would require a year for the materials to be produced. Was there a time skip I was not made aware of?

Olminu must have a hard time off screen as it seems that all she is to the characters is a walking boob joke. It’s unfortunate when your mentor is praising your talent and calling you a prodigy only for him to remind us that she has breasts. She certainly does but really what does that have to do with anything? I say the Drifters crew need to take a look over at Occultic;Nine as there is a much more deserving target for the boob jokes. Ryo-tas could use some mockery over her design because it is certainly driving me insane at just how no one in the show remarks about the girl who looks like she got a XLL size breast transplant. Olminu is at least proving that she has an actual point in the series besides being a pin up girl and it would be nice to see her get some respect for it. That and the boob jokes got old fast.

Oda is once again flabbergasted over technology as he marvels over the communication device which is a orb that essentially acts as a transistor radio. His revelations over how this device would revolutionize warfare also brings up a fair point about Murasaki’s actual job. I for the most part assumed that this battle was essentially a minor spat between EASY and Murasaki for entertainment but there is a question about Murasaki’s actual job. This episode seems to suggest that Murasaki takes Drifters from other world to provide perspective and innovation to another, hence preventing stagnation. It’s possible this was the original purpose of Drifters which has been turned into a war between EASY and Murasaki. It doesn’t excuse the fact that these two are wreaking a unrelated world over a personal grudge but it does give some light into why these two even exist.

On the ends side of things the black king is teaching the monsters agriculture which might explain as to why they didn’t send their full force to kill the Drifters. They mentioned this before but the ends intent appears to be only killing off humans in order to hand the world over to the monsters for them to take humanity’s place. So essentially the ends are saviors to the monsters who are wiping out humanity to give them a chance at a better life. The contrast is rather interesting. The ends are teaching their side agriculture and farming whereas the Drifters are teaching their side war and weapon making. Makes one wonder who is the true villain.

Occultic;Nine – 07-08[Happiness is a Warm Gun]

by AidanAK47, posted in Currently Watching:, Occultic:Nine

By episode sevens end it did confirm that indeed, the majority of the cast is dead which brings up a whole host of problems. For you see while this twist may seem like a interesting left turn, it only really works if you consider the time a character is shown on screen the only time in existence that they have. This show demands that you completely disregard the other free time you would assume living beings have in life. For if you take that into account then these people should have figured out something was wrong much much sooner. After all, if they eat then they might wonder why the store attendant is ignoring them while confused at how products were carried to the till by themselves. If they don’t eat then anyone would notice if they went several days without eating. There’s also problems with general rules of how they are perceived. The show already establishes that they have a physical presence and can bump into people. But if they pick something up and put it into their pocket then does that item turn invisible? Or is there a floating tooth key walking around when mister blogger goes out for a stroll? The more you think about it, the less sense it makes. This twist also brings the problem that with our main characters dead that means that they are in no danger. That means no tension. On top of all that when you confirm that death is not permanent than that renders death meaningless which is generally why the “dead” twist is often pulled at the end of a story.

Considering the inconsistency of the sped up dialogue I think we can safely say that it isn’t a stylistic choice. More likely the script hasn’t been planned to the time constraints of each episode and the dialogue is sped up to compensate. A very unwise method of trying to squash it in as it kills the pacing and whatever immersion the viewer had when all the characters start speedrunning their dialogue. I actually wondered if the video was literally sped up as people start vomiting exposition at a rapid rate. Also boy, that exposition. I said before that I doubted this show would have satisfactory answers for any of the questions it poses without resorting to something dumb. Thus I hereby say I called it because good god this is dumb. So the Kotoribako which was given so much attention previously now seems to have no real purpose. Instead this seven gods cult thing has somehow cultivated both a mind control drug and a chemical which can allow you to retain yourself after death. There’s some info dumping nonsense about them doing this by following some notes by Nikola Tesla and perfecting it by analysing a thesis written by the professor who was murdered.

So this is treading the old ground of Chaos;Head in which a scribble written by the protagonist on the back of a homework essay somehow lead to the creation of reality wrapping machines. Not sure why they did this seeing as a second time round this explanation is just as dumb as the first time we went through it. Maybe even more so. But we ain’t done yet as it turns out that the mysterious evil organization was created by Mr Not-neets dad. How this happened was that the dad was a radio show host who used to take questions from viewers and give advice(You know typical radio show stuff) but he was apparently so good at it that he started giving live seminars and then it became a cult. Feel free to read over that sentence and let it sink in that someone wrote this down and didn’t see anything wrong with it. Sure not-neet says it’s far fetched but it’s not even that, it’s downright impossible. It wasn’t even a big radio station, just some small town one and yet it somehow gained such a following that it spawned an evil organisation with plans for world domination?

This writer continues to utterly baffle me with how he fails to see the utter ridiculousness of his own ideas. If this anime was satire or comedy that might be something. But it’s clear that we are supposed to take this 100% seriously.  Personally I find that difficult when the main villain has a plan as ridiculous as a old bond villain. All they really need now is a volcano lair and they got the whole set. Seriously how are these evil organizations even formed? How do you gather a huge group of like minded people to sit in a room all day discussing how they are going to rule the world by injecting mind control drugs into world leaders? Guys, are you sure you planned this out? I mean you think no one is going to notice all the world leaders acting weird? Who decides what, how does it even get done? After all even if you take over the world leader there is still a government that’s not going to approve your slave collar law. What are you even going to do with the world?

Because nobody really thinks about that, considering that running one country’s affairs is a giant pain in itself. Of course maybe they don’t really care about running the world well but then what’s the bloody point? Rule the world just for bragging rights? As for other events Ryo-tas remains a waste of screen time besides being a mannequin with basketballs glued to her chest. The rest spend most of their time discussing if they are dead or not, or being depressed about it. The other antagonists on the other hand seem happy enough to talk enigmatic despite the fact that the audience has long since stopped giving a damn. Admittedly I am skimming over character interactions and just commenting on the mystery of the show but that truly is the only thing carrying it. Which makes it all the more noticeable when you can poke holes in it till it all just falls apart. By now, in this story sense is a sandwich so sure, why not just throw in an inexplicable moai statue contraption whose sole purpose seems to be poor security for a usb stick.

Magical Girl Raising Project – 09[Notice of New Rules]

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

Calamity Mary dying was pretty expected and the death that followed was equally something that was bound to happen. Though having a third death was not quite what I expected. Considering the small line in one of the halfway blurbs about Nana having some other intentions I thought she might have more to her than one would think. Sadly it turns out she was as boring as she appears when she commits suicide after Weiss’s death. I admit that I didn’t notice that she used Weiss’s scarf as a noose, that as a nice detail. Word of mouth say that the anime changed how the other two died a bit as Mary wasn’t supposed to get a shuriken to the head. In the light novel it seems that Ripple through a window at her which Mary shot up. However thanks to Ripples ability, the shards of glass kept flying towards Mary, turning her into a human pincushion. I don’t really get just way this was changed as it seems like a far more interesting end to the fight.

I don’t think it had to due with animation constraints as they still ended up using the glass anyway and this series has not been shy with showing gore either. It does make me wonder if the lack of impact these deaths have is related to minor changes on the studio’s part. The second change was Top Speeds death as while she was killed the same way both times, in the light novel she was helping Ripple up when she got attacked. Which certainly makes more sense as I really don’t see h0w Ripple didn’t spot Swim Swim behind Top Speed. I am not certain as to how i feel about this particular death as it is rather tasteless. Top speed was one of the more likable characters in the group and the big twist of her being pregnant being used for shock factor doesn’t sit well with me. It’s like a dead baby joke, morally outrageous and shocking but immature and cheap.

Made all the more cruel when you consider that if Swim Swim knew about Nana’s suicide, she wouldn’t have attacked Top Speed. As Swim is the logical type she would see it would be not worth it. Fav fixes this soon enough by going “tee hee, turns out you lot are using more magic than expected so the number is now four instead of eight”. At this point Fav is not hiding his intentions whatsoever, it’s clear he wants the killing game to continue. With this new rule three more girls have to drop out of the running and I doubt both Cranberry and Swim Swim are making it out of this. Swim seems to be making Cranberry her next target and considering her ability she would make for a formidable foe. One thing I found odd this episode was just how little an effect killing Mary had on Top Speed and Ripple.

Mary was hardly a saint but I would have expected the fact that Ripple killed a person would have a more somber effect than “Woohoo! Good job!” But I do see potential in a battle between Swim Swim and Ripple. After all she’s bound to come after her with a vengeance but what will happen when she kills Swim and finds a little girl lying dead in front of her. I think congratulations would be far from her mind then. Though Snow White taking down Swim would be far more devastating, that is of course if she can fight her. This episode did show that her mind reading power has other uses besides finding people in danger. It did reveal that Tama believes she’s in over her head so she could be a potential ally in the future. Though for now it looks like the remaining angel has found out how to kill Alice.

Drifters – 08[Mystery Call Me]

by AidanAK47, posted in Aquarion Evol, Currently Watching:, Drifters

It looks to be a trend of drifters to follow a high action episode with a cooling down period. Though it does leave me with little to comment on. Scipio meeting Kanno and neither being able to understand each other lead to what may be one of the few jokes that actually hit with this series. Albeit one of the jokes that requires some knowledge of world war II to get. It certainly got a big smile from me though Kanno seems like the type of character who is perpetually pissed off. Meanwhile Hannibal has gone senile without Scipio around to keep him focused which makes me wonder why Murasaki didn’t pick him up from a earlier time in his life. Though considering how he reacts to Toyohisa it could be that his senile status is a just an act though for what purpose I couldn’t tell. The dwarves look to be next on this liberation campaign and I really wonder when it became commonplace that elves live in forests using bows and that Dwarfs are underground and are great metalworkers. In some ways Tolkien cursed the fantasy genre by giving it a standard template.

Abe no seimei brings up a certain concern I had regarding the drifters in that none of them seem to really care about the effect they are having in this world. I don’t quite agree on his assessment that Hitler was trying to help in his own way but considering that Hitler was after his time it safe to assume that Abe doesn’t know just what Hitler has done. Oda’s clearly lays out that he has plans that go beyond just beating the ends and Abe more or less has to go along with it as there really isn’t a better way to defeat the ends. However it’s clear that the Drifters and ends are altering this world beyond repair. The ends have followed with the old saying that if life gives you lemons….kill everything. Meanwhile the Drifters are introducing concepts much earlier than intended, with Hitler creating a second WWII germany and Oda pushing to create modern firearms which would throw the power scale all out of whack. Though we do have the issue that just because Butch and Sundance use guns, that does not mean they know how to make them.

They seem to be getting there though as Oda is making gunpowder and it seems the transvestite count will help with creating the primer later down the line. But man, Oda’s reaction when the cowboys started telling him about modern firearms and how he knew it would change everything about war. So both the heroes and the villains don’t actually care what happens to the world  and for that matter I am thinking that Murasaki and EASY don’t care much either. We don’t actually know why they started this game in the first place but considering the overly familiar approach EASY takes with Murasaki it could be that this game is just a matter of passing time for them. In truth perhaps the Ends are not the actual endgame of this series but instead the final bosses are these two. Who treat humans as mere playthings to entertain themselves.

Magical Girl Raising Project – 08[Sudden Event In Session!]

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

Blessed be the peacemaker, for she ups the body count. I don’t think it’s a surprise that Winterprison ended up dying while protecting Nana. But it is surprising that she managed to take down one of the twin angels before getting taken out. All the more surprising considering that the angels didn’t get a flashback so hurray for unpredictability! Though considering that I don’t really care much about them for it to hold any emotional weight it was more just nice to have one of the annoying characters get taken out of the show. Swim Swim is someone I care about and it was fascinating how she went about this. Ultimately she was following Rulers advice in that the leader does the absolute minimum and leaves the majority of the work to a subordinate. It’s no doubt that Ruler was an incompetent leader with a superiority complex but it is fascinating in how Swim Swim holds her in such reverence and uses her image to become a better yet crueler leader than Ruler ever was. Really what is wrong with this girl, after all she wasn’t sad that one of the twin angels died, instead she was disappointed in herself because she thought that Ruler would have done it better.

It was a good plan but they didn’t quite count on Weiss not getting taken out immediately. There is the question of why the peaky angel didn’t transform to escape Weiss’s grasp, especially when Weiss was specifically telling her that if she transformed into Nana again she wouldn’t be able to hurt her even if she knew she was fake. But I think they can’t transform as long as someone is touching them. Evidence of this being how when the angels stabbed Weiss and she pulled out the knife and threw it into the air before she transformed back. Fear as well could be a factor. But if I was to question anyones actions here I would question Weiss’s. Taking into account her ability I think she could have killed all the team by using her wall ability to crush them against the ceiling.

Koyuki seems to see that Hardgore Alice isn’t her enemy though she doesn’t quite like her all the same. Calamity Mary on the other hand has gone full psycho. With both Weiss and the angel out that means we only have two more eliminations to end the battle royale. Judging by current circumstances I doubt Mary is going to come out of this alive. We have seen that Mary was an abusive housewife looking to bully the weak and Fav jumped to give her power straight away the demonic little monster that he is. I do quite like when he drops the cutesy act and his tone goes more malevolent. Mary’s background is pretty typical but it does make her reaction to Alice a little more interesting. Mary likes to bully those weaker than her and while she can overpower Alice, she cannot kill her. So this pretty much makes Alice unbullyable and something Mary cannot stand. This would give their next confrontation some real emotional weight that has been missing from all the fights up to now.

Watching this really makes me appreciate just how well Fate/Zero set up it’s own Battle Royale as it truly was a well structured plotline. With fight scenes in a story you generally have a few ways to go about it. One way is to go with spectacle and make a fight visually dynamic say like Drifters did with it’s action scenes this week. However Raising project just doesn’t have the kind of animation and artstyle to really deliver on a spectacle. Another method is to give a fight an emotional weight. In Fate/Zero the first episode was the worst but it did the groundwork of clearing up all the masters motivations and how they contrasted the other players. The very first fight of the series setup dynamics between the servant. Like Gilgamesh wanting to take down berserker, Berserker wanting to fight Saber, Saber needing to fight Lancer…each character had a counterpoint that made the fights compelling, be it through principles or personality. Raising project doesn’t have that. For the most part all the battles are random skirmishes between opponents who don’t actually know each other. Dues to our lack of information on their characters these fight just feel rather empty and ineffectual.

However we do have counterpoints forming within the cast. Nana has reason to fight Swim Swim, the peaky angel will likely want to attack Nana in revenge for her sister, Mary wants to get back at Alice, Koyuki will want to fight Cranberry after finding out she’s responsible for Souta’s death…these could make the battles more interesting but even then I think this shows big mistake was having such a massive cast of characters. The best battle royales make it a point to get you to care for the characters before killing them off. I am far too apathetic about the plight of these girls to get invested in the conflict. Of course this doesn’t mean we need more flashbacks as they are the lazy tool for character development. Instead having more meaningful character interaction and grown would be a better option. Ripple and Top Speeds relationship is a good example. Speaking of which, I really worry for top speed. We have got the full extent of her backstory which means that she is a prime target to be killed off.

Drifters – 07[Chaos Diver]

by AidanAK47, posted in Currently Watching:, Drifters

Considering this is the first clash the Drifters had with the ends things went rather smoothly. They managed to take one down and send the other one packing. This really is what Drifters is best act, balls to the wall action and insanity. Admittedly I wish the animation is better as it does rely on closeups to cut down on the animation needed. But I wholeheartedly admit that Ufotable may have spoiled me in regards to fight animation. This was indeed a spectacle of badassery and with the leader of the Octobrists bringing in the rest of the Drifter I think we could have some interesting interaction and culture clash as they bounce off each other. One thing I particularly loved was when Butch and Sundance brought out the Gatling Gun. The look on Oda’s face when he saw that gun was priceless. As a guy who heavily pushed firearms in Japan during his time, I most certainly think he will be interested in that beast of a weapon. Big problem is that upon gunning down Giles they did mention that they used up the last clip and i think it would be a major problem figuring out how to reproduce the bullets.

As for the battle itself, Toyohisa once more working with suicidal charges, Yoichi shoots arrows and Oda hangs back to lead the elves. If it’s one thing this episode pointed out it’s that the ends really do have a massive advantage in this battle. If they are all as hard to kill as Giles then they happen to have superpowers along with heavy invulnerability. Though the difference could be like Toyohisa said, the ends are now exactly professionals when it comes to combat. At least what I heard of Joan of Arc she wasn’t exactly famous for being a great fighter and Anastasia certainly has no real combat experience. That does seem to be the turning point in this battle, Easy is choosing tragic figures who have reason to hate the world while Murasaki is choosing Military commanders and strategists. The only thing that really give the ends the edge is there supernatural tendencies so Murasaki may be onto something here.

So Joan of Arc is defeated by our resident Samurai and upon confirming she is a woman, he refuses to kill her. Allow me to ask the loaded question. Does that make Toyohisa sexist? Well looking at the actions presented here the answer to that question would be yes and yet calling Toyohisa sexist just doesn’t sound right to me. After all he did thank the octobrist girl for helping to save his life and trusted her to help him in battle. I believe this does present a certainly nauce often overlooked by more overzealous types that attempt to label every person, word, action and home appliance as sexist in some nature. In my personal opinion I would deem that Toyohisa is not sexist but is instead following the traditions and beliefs of his clan which have been pounded into him from birth. Those traditions are indeed a product of a time less kind to woman but to Toyohisa these very things are his reality.

Imagine if you will that you walked into an alternate reality where fish swim in the sky instead of the sea. Wouldn’t that feel wrong? After all fish swim in the sea, it’s what makes sense, it’s what you have been taught from the beginning. Same goes for Toyohisa, in his world woman stay off the battlefield. That’s just his reality. If he came from a world which woman fought on the front lines it’s likely Toyohisa wouldn’t have any real problem with Joan being on the battlefield and would have beheaded her. So is Toyohisa in the wrong here, I say no. The only thing wrong here is that Toyohisa let a very dangerous individual live to fight another day when he could end her then and there. Otherwise Toyohisa was simply living up to his character as someone deeply entrenched in his beliefs. The only thing I find immensely weird here is that Toyohisa was confused over Joans gender and yet Yoichi he recognized as a man immediately? How very odd.

Magical Girl Raising Project – 07[Up Your Friendship!]

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

Hardgore Alice really lucked out in regards to Magical girl abilities as he pretty much has the perfect ability for making her the most dangerous thing in this battle royale. I do wonder what happens to her phone though when she gets ripped to shreds. Calamity Mary’s whole gauntlet of trying to kill Alice. She quite literally tried everything in regards to killing her from encasing her in concrete to trying to dissolve her in acid. Either way it looks like Calamity Mary’s ability is being able to pull out any weapon she needs. I at least appreciate that Mary liked Magicaroid enough to actually seek revenge for her death and Fav is certainly showing that he’s willing to bend the rules as long as he gets something in return. Mary didn’t specify just what job she would do for Fav for the information on Hardgore Alice but it could be related to her calling out Ripple at episodes end.

We also get a look into a character’s backstory. I originally thought it was Calamity Mary seeing as the entire first half was dedicated to her but it seems that it was instead Ripple, the Ninja magical girl who hangs out with Top Speed. I do like Ripples style as her backstory was gearing up to be a typical abused child story but she’s got moxie. The characters around her are playing the usual fair of being bullies why too obnoxious to be considered believable but the minute they go too far she shows them she ain’t going just let them walk over her. Especially love how she dealt with her mother’s new husband. I was really dreading the direction that was going but the minute the man showed his intent Ripple was like “Oh, hell no!”, kicked his teeth in and announced that she was going to live on her own. I have serious respect for this girl but it’s clear she doesn’t hold her mother in high regard. In some ways she may be seeing Top Speed as a kind of surrogate mother as she does tend to act like one. I doubt Top Speed gave Ripple her real age as she did mention drinking alcohol and Ripple pointing out that she would be underage for it as well.

Of course if you were following the trend of deaths so far then it’s a safe bet to assume that Ripple is the next one to die. After all, anyone who gets a flashback is generally the one to end up dying in this show. I would like for the show to break this pattern and instead have someone else get taken down because unpredictably would be a great asset to this show and that’s sadly getting ruined by how telegraphed the deaths are. It’s also sad that most of the people who die are those with the most development so far. I think characters are starting to get fleshed out a tiny bit in the case of Swim Swim, Alice and Mary. Through not really enough to make me care whether they live or die. Though I must admit that I find Alice’s current relation to Snow white interesting. Snow’s clearly terrified of her but Alice seems to genuinely want to help her. After all she did spend six years of her live to buy that rabbit’s foot only to give it to Snow White. Her nature does make her seem suspicious and pretty dangerous, especially the stiff undead movements. However I am guessing Alice is a Snow White fanboy(Confirmed to be a girl by last week’s mid card which pointed out that she lives with her aunt and loves stuffed bunnies.), and considering her abilities she would certainly make for one fantastic ally for this Battle Royale.

 

Drifters – 06[Men of Destiny]

by AidanAK47, posted in Currently Watching:, Drifters

Well those soldiers deserved to die much more unpleasantly but at least the deed is done. Though I do find it interesting in how Oda interfered with their execution to prevent Toyohisa from giving the order to kill them. The funny thing is that this effort didn’t seem to be made in order to save Toyohisa the guilt of killing unarmed men or to save the men but instead Oda wanted to take on the dirty job of killing them so the act wouldn’t sully Toyohisa’s position when Oda pushes him to become the leader. Much to Oda’s dismay, Toyohisa hands the reigns of leader over to the elfen chieftain on the grounds that if he did lead the elves, then eventually the time would come when their arrows would be aimed at him. Though regardless they look to be playing a pivotal role in the army. In other surprising revelations, it turns out that the master race bigots of Orta was set up by Hitler. HItler can’t seem to be satisfied with screwing one world up, he has to go and wreck another. We won’t be seeing a climatic battle between evil Jesus and anti-hero Hitler(…I actually kinda want to see that.) as according to the Octobrist agent, Hitler has once again killed himself. It’s up for debate whether he did genuinely kill himself or if he was more likely assassinated. Still I did see someone theorize that perhaps when seeing that he was repeating history he decided to off himself which I find a more poetic end. It is rather funny that none of the Drifters recognise Hitler because he was after their time.

Speaking of Drifters I think the roster has a bit too much Japanese representation. We got a grand total of five Japanese representatives on the drifters side with the main trio, the fighter pilot and the navy admiral. The ends even have two Japanese figures and from the looks of it the Octoberist leader looks to be another Japanese figure. There are other historical figures that I really think are unrepresented in media. For one I think Admiral Yi would have made for a better sea commander and I would have loved to see famed Finnish Sniper Simo Hayha, Aka The White Death who would make a perfect counterpoint for Anatasia of the ends. And if you were going to pick any World War II fighter pilot then why not Erich Hartmann? I feel he would be a much more interesting choice than Kanno Naoshi. But who know, maybe later in the story they might show up. Not sure what to think about the transvestite count that’s shown up in Orta, for one I find it odd that Hitler would choose to work with such a guy and he seems to be mainly a comic relief character in a story where the comedy is certainly falling flat. Overall I don’t see him as much of a worthwhile addition at this point as at most he has pointed out that Orta seems to be doomed that’s to overextending its armies which I believe was also a mistake that Hitler made in WWII as well. The black king drops more hints to him being Jesus by referencing Jesus cursing a fig tree for being barren(Got to admit, not his most graceful miracle.) and it looks like Joan the pyromaniac is coming to take on the Drifters. Considering their army is just getting set up this likely won’t end well.

Occultic;Nine – 04-06[She Took a Long Cold Look]

by AidanAK47, posted in Currently Watching:, Occultic:Nine

Forgive me for my recent laziness in covering this series. I would like to give you a proper excuse as to why I have been slacking in my coverage of Occultic;Nine but in truth it really is due to a complete lack of interest in my part. My previous episodic reviews have been heavily negative and when tasked to yet again complain about how this show just isn’t interesting I find my motivation just isn’t there.I mean sure I could complain about how the blogger constantly tries to use the tooth key on every lock he finds when just looking at the lock itself would tell him if the key would fit. Seeing as the key is a lever lock type so using it on a lock clearly intended for a standard Pin tumbler lock key is just pure stupidity. There also isn’t any real need for him to find out what it unlocks in the first place as getting involved gets him closer to being arrested, though quite frankly it’s a miracle he hasn’t been arrested already. Then there is the professor who decided the best way to hide information was to fill in the dots on his ceiling to match baudot code and decided the best way to inform people of this was by writing code with his last breath?

One, isn’t there a much easier method of hiding information? Two, wouldn’t you run out of space on your ceiling if you have to write 256 names and some obscure number? Three, what is the point of writing 256 peoples names on your ceiling in the first place? If you want it found then use it to explain the entire situation to them. There’s no point in being obtuse with those whom you intend to have find the message. Then there’s the point of Ryo-tas being a complete worthless character and the detective kid who seems to only go up to people, talk nonsense for an extended period of time, reveal who he is, what he knows and then walks off having learned nothing. See…just pure complaining. Constant complaining is what these episode reviews would be and despite this I appreciated that the show was at least trying to repair the damage done from episode one and at least on some level trying to set up a coherent interesting mystery. Failing at it of course but at least trying. Then episode six happened and I felt compelled to write about this.

I am flabbergasted at what I have just witnessed as it is a repeat of the failings of episode one on a much grander scale. Sudden spitfire dialogue is back and the pacing is screwed to high heaven as we are overloaded with so much information that I wouldn’t be surprised if viewers were brain dead by episodes end. This episode wasn’t just a trainwreck be story standards but a visual trainwreck as well. The editing was scatterbrained and there are just decisions with have me confused as to why anyone in their right mind would consider it acceptable. We have one certain scene were the detective kid is once again acting coy, then shooting off what he knows only to run off having learned nothing. Yet when he is explaining everything he’s investigating, for a straight minute and ten seconds the camera spins in place.

It’s disorientating, annoying and has nothing to do with what the scene is trying to convey. Most of the episode followed a pattern of slow pans that when on for far too long follow by a sudden influx of jarring shot changes. Episode five had an equally weird moment of when the blogger walked into the professor’s room and for some reason they flipped the camera upside down. To highlight the ceiling? Then why follow that with 90 degree flips and having proceeding shots being slanted. What on earth is that supposed to convey? The director seems to be experimenting with shot style but frankly there are certain rules on how to set a scene for a reason. Breaking the 180 degree rule tends to leave the viewer disoriented and considering how much you are demanding they keep up with here that is a serious fault.

So suddenly we have we have Kotoribako and if you have no idea what that is then don’t expect to know by episode’s end as the first minute and a half proceeds to shove information about it down your throat at the velocity of a rocket. Suddenly this thing which was never mentioned before has become the centerpiece of the plot. This is giving serious deja vu of how the D-Swords hijacked the plot of Chaos;Head.(All that stupid nonsense for what is essentially a crappy Zanpakuto) Anyway we also have a sudden Illuminati that has also never been mentioned appear and start pointing out how the mass drowning was some attempt to create some kind of human Kotoribako and….sorry if I didn’t quite get it as my brain was really genuinely struggling to keep up with the sudden influx of information. Either way I don’t think it makes any sense. The creepy boy also seems to be creating some human Kotoribako while mouthing off the defense of infancy as an excuse as to why he can’t be held accountable for murder.

Thing is that defense only works the murderer in question doesn’t have the emotional maturity to determine the wrongness of the act. Considering that the first thing you do when confronted is mouth of the defense of Infancy that clearly shows you do know what’s wrong about the act therefore rendering your excuse complete moot you idiotic troglodyte. But hey he’s a demon child or whatever so it doesn’t matter either way. Thus we have the final twist of the episode and it’s the big one that it’s apparently been building up to. The twist is that….everyone’s dead! Yes, it appears the majority of the cast has been dead all this time and I just…really can’t care anymore. This is one of those twists which upon reveal seems shocking and interesting but when you sit down and really think about it the less sense it actually makes. I don’t know what this show is trying to accomplish anymore and it just seems folly to even try. I plan to finish it but my episode reviews may be more sporadic in regards to it. As you can see, my enthusiasm is at rock bottom when it comes to this.